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Am I the only one that hates UGAS? What is it about a company when they get to big, they let all these lawyers crawl up their ass. All UGAS dose now is try to rip off their members, with like 4 levels of memberships and more up sales than content. I personally will dance on their grave when they finally collapse. Its a wired cycle I see allot of other companies follow. >:(
So I guess its only me that hates them?
how exactly are they trying to rip off members?
Please explain in detail.
They've always had the same memberships as before. I can't see anything that's changed.
What do lawyers have to do with anything?
i'm actually not aware of 4 levels for members. and lots of other avs's have premium and regular memberships. in fact, most of them do.
Well I would call having 3 levels of memberships for the same site a rip off myself. What if I did that with my members site would you think that would be cool, hell NO. Its the old bait and switch scam, all they care about is making very dine out of members. Its full of up-sales and they handcuff their contributors to insure they can maximizes there profits as well.
As far as the lawyers they sanitize everything so much it changes the original feel of the site, especially when you are talking about AVS and directories. I do not blame them that’s their job I guess, but the net effect is to make a system bland, predictable, and filled with indistinguishable sites.
We are in the porn/art field, if you can not shock people from time to time you might as well get a job with Disney. Of course this is just my opinion, what the hell do I know
sorry I looked its 3 for now anyways
i only see 2 levels of membership - regular and platinum. preferred sites don't have their own membership as far as i know.
and considering how extremely up front they are about the two level, i just can't see how it's a rip off. regular members get access to a fuck lot of sites, you know, plus regular updates. that's for i believe $19.95 per year.
i don't feel you can really compare it to a paysite membership as i sure don't know of a lot of paysites that charge only $19.95 per year.
As far as I know UGAS has Regular Yearly memberships for $19.95, 2 Year Regular Memberships for $26.95 and Lifetime Regular memberships for $65.95. All of these give you access to Regular and Preferred galleries plus limited Platinum bonus access.
UGAS also has Platinum Memberships for $39.95 for 1 month access and $99.95 for 3 month access.
And now there is something called Free UGAS. I'm not sure what that is because the password that I was issued never worked.
I see nothing wrong with how UGAS is set up. Other than Free UGAS, it's almost identical to MANcheck. I personally will not use an AVS/AEN that does not have a Premium program like UGAS's Platinum or MANcheck's PlusVideo. I would like to include GlobalMalePass and Mansites in the AVSs that I submit to but they don't have Premium programs.
Btw, does anyone still submit to ProAdult - Imen anymore? I still get checks for some reason. Lol.
There's 19.95/yr, 26.95/2 yr, and $65.95/lifetime, Platinum for $39.95/month
You get rebills from anyone who keeps their platinum membership, and who signs up for a platinum membership.
Where's the ripoff in that?
Jigg, have you seen http://www.ugaslive.com/. It's a pop-up you get if you close down http://www.ugas.com/cams/free_membership. I have never seen or heard of it before. It sure would be nice of them to let us know about these things.
I would be the opposite, I do not like avs with premium program, nor ones filled with up-sales. 40$ a month for a members service is really high, I would not support any site doing that. I like GMP, Mansites, Sexkey, Freeavs, mancheck, is ok but they are border line and moving towards the UGAS model as I see it. I really do care more about Avs traffic, the way they operate their company, and their compatibility with other services. I really dont have time to make a whole new site for every avs, nor will I support any service I feel is less than equable. After all AVS service offer just about the same content that people can get for free anyway, and are just charging for it. To tell the truth I join any service I am thinking about promoting, if I fell they are offering poor services, or charging too much no mater how many sales I could make for them I will not promote them. I really do care more about viewers than just making some fast cash. I feel as a gay webmaster I owe it to people to look out for them. In my opinion like allot of people that don’t like “Microsoft” companies that are just about maximizing their sales so they can keep these little napoleons on their staffs should not be supported.
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Originally Posted by Xstr8guy
That looks eerily similar to flirt-for-free Hmmm
UGAS Live is Flirt 4 Free with a UGAS skin on it. Check the bottom of the site, it's "VS Media."
Maxpower, no AVS/AEN model makes its money on selling yearly access for $19.95, and neither does any webmaster. Everyone makes their money on selling some kind of monthly upgrade to another product. GMP, Mansites, Sexkey, Freeavs, Mancheck, UGAS, they all do it. If you take a look at MANcheck, for example, from a $19.95 one-year membership, $11.50 goes to the webmaster if he's running an exclusive MANcheck gallery; that leaves $8.45 for MANcheck, from which you have deduct the processing fees, which will leave possibly $5.00 in MANcheck's pocket for a year's worth of access. For the free AVS like Sexkey, Mansites, and GMP, it's worse, don't they give webmasters all or most of the initial sale? That means they only make money on the memberships that rebill to a premium product.
And I'm sorry, a good many paysites out there offer access to the same content as all of their competition. Unless we're talking about Randy Blue, Corbin Fisher, Sean Cody, or Fratmen type sites who shoot their own content. But even a good number of them pad their sites with filler plugins.
It's great that you care more about your surfers than anything else. And if that's truly the case, then build the best galleries you can and give your surfers the best experience they can have. In doing this, you will increase the value of the MANcheck or UGAS membership that you're selling. If you create the same crap that you complain about then you really just add to the perceived problem, don't you?
Cheers,
Michael
Free Avs like Sexkey, Mansites give out 20$ to webmasters for a free join, but ya they do piggyback a members sites that has to be canalled or it will rebilled.
I have all the puling-ins too, allot of members sites don’t even do that, they just have a few with some content on their domains. You can tell these poor site normally because they don’t have a trial memberships. I really do hope some day to have enough members that I can make exclusive content too, but that take allot of money.
I really do try to make the best sites I can, in fact I would say my sites are better than 90% of others sites. My AVS sites are my #2 biggest generator of sales people must like something about them, because they get to look at what ever site they selected for free in directories before they even get to the other AVS sites I have. I try to make a wide verity of them and mix it up as much as I can but I am kinda old school I don’t like to give out to much quality content for free. If people keep giving out too much why would people join anything. Its just really hard to promote all AVS sites at one time, “really not that much traffic around” and when “free Avs” offer 20$ and others offer like 11$ for a something they charge 19.95+ for I kinda have to go with the numbers you know.
BTW I have been submitting site to your service for more than 5 years, its not that I hate you or anything. Hell your one of the original Avs services, and I do understand you have to make money like I do as well. Its just when things get out of hand that I start to have a problem with it.
I knew that looked too similar to flirt-for-free, I have live content from northern exposed, I assumed flirt-for-free was affiliated with them. I got that URL with my package from them, but I did not add it, really for full members site I don’t think its to cool to have up-sales so I did not add it to my system. But that kinda thinking is why that I might have still not really made too much money yet.
I'm not sure what you mean by "get out of hand." If you're having a problem with something at MANcheck, by all means talk to me about it. If you need some help in boosting your sales, e-mail me and I'll help you in any way I can. That's my main job at MANcheck, helping webmasters build better galleries and making more money. You can reach me at michael at mancheck dot com.Quote:
Originally Posted by maxpower
BTW, while initially a Mansites or GMP sales looks better (you get a $20 commission instead of $11.50) you're not making any money (or much money) on the subsequent rebilling of the premium product. So, if 50% of your one-year memberships rebill on the 8th day after the free premium demo expires, you're already ahead because you're making $11.50 + $18 rebilling. And you'll continue to earn $18 every month until the member cancels.
The Free AVS/AEN's make their money by giving the webmaster all or most of the initial sale or simply giving them $20 for the initial sign-up, but then, the webmaster makes nothing or very little on the subsequent rebills.
It's like a paysite's PPS. You don't think they love PPS? If the site retains for any length of time, they give you your $30, and then, they grab all the rebills for the next 4, 5, 6, 7, months of more. They win big, you've got to keep sending them traffic to make money. The only time PPS is really any good is when the site's member's area sucks. It isn't going to retain for long, so you might as well take your $30 and run, but for the Randy Blues, Corbin Fisher's and Fratmen, I'll take revshare any day.
Michael
I don’t have any real problem with mancheck or trust me I would have said so LOL. You probably are right about the rebill thing, but I get 35$ for sales to the only other member site I promote “free 3 day pass” they are kinda old so it makes my member site look cool BTW my member site dose 10-1 over them, and 20$ for the free avs service I manly promote. I have a very large number of sites with them and they give me allot of traffic. With AVS sites I really only care about traffic, and pool my avs sites really just for the traffic. I love AVS traffic allot more than the sales I get from them, I really kinda do look at them like directories that sometimes I get a bonus buck from time to time. Their really are just about 10 places to get good traffic for AVS sites that I know about, that’s what makes it hard to promote more than one at a time.
If their was a few directories that that only listed lets say mancheck sites, that had good traffic hell ya I would list all kinds of sites with them. To tell the truth I probably would not even care about the sales at all you could keep that as far as I am concerned. I just want good traffic.
Xstr8Guy I'm not getting that popup for some reason. Tried both firefox and IE7 beta and got nothin. I remember the popup to get a $2.95 or whatever it was, trial for people who clicked away from the signup page or the UGAS tour.
Maxpower, you sound like you could be what is commonly referred to as a traffic leach... someone who uses AVSs as a source for traffic to upsell to their sponsors. Traffic leaches typically use old or "public domain" content. Traffic leaches have tours with a few thumbs, no text and a log-in script. And their member's areas usually push sponsors very hard.
Don't get me wrong. I actually think this is a legitmate way to make money. I believe it is the duty of the AVS itself to raise the standards of the galleries submitted to them... to keep out the crap. In the past, I have used some of the non-rebilling AVSs as traffic sources although I don't do that any more. The AVSs that I care about (Mancheck and UGAS) have great Premium products (PlusVideo and Platinum) that are so easy to sell from you tours, it makes complete sense to focus on that. I make more money from AVSs than I do from my sponsors.
Instead of cranking out templated galleries, I use fresh and/or semi-exclusive content, I spend some time adding text to bring some SE traffic to the AVS, make my tours graphically sophisticated to entice surfers and use sales pitch to sell the benefits of the AVS. In return, the AVS gives me amazing amounts of quality traffic and great premium products to upsell surfers to.
Many people think that AVS is dead. But I completely disagree. I just think potential AVS webmasters give up too fast. It just takes time to build your brand and gain surfer loyalty. The days of easy money are definitely gone but with a little effort, AVS is a great way to make a living. Now if they could just develop ways to legitmately verify age, everyone could be making a killing.
I don’t have a problem with AVS sites, but really cant promote more than 1 at a time. My main focus is my members site, I do add text to my AVS pages I guess I should add some preview pics, but I make some ok sales with them. Really that’s not my bread and butter. That was a few years ago, but really that whole no more “AVS” stuff kinda killed it. I do provide sites people like not sure I would call me a “leach” I am not “Kevin Cave” I really specialize in weird, out of the ordinary twink sites, as far as Free/AVS sites go. If people did not like my work I would have had to get a real job years ago. But you are right traffic is really what I care about
Really with my focus on my members site I don’t think I will be giving away to many fresh series pics/ moves. My goal is not to fill a AVS site will content they did not have to pay for and burn out my content in the process. Acutely I think that having allot of second run content is best for AVS and free sites. It makes their up-sale sites look better as well as mine. I really want to get people hard with out getting them off for free. They should lead with their best content for their tours of course, but after someone pays the 20$ a year to get in the AVS then why should I care. We are all going to go broke with 20$ a year memberships that have allot of the same content that members sites do. In my opinion to many people are giving out good free content is sites that are nothing more than a pic post. It has just about made pics about worthless, and now allot of people are giving away videos WTF? Its not very expensive to pay for a membership to a site, if you don’t want to join a real site then you should get what you deserve.
How many different names are you going to create here?Quote:
Originally Posted by maxpower
This is so obviously nomad aka newguy for those who haven't figured it out.
Maxpower, you are missing the point of my post. I use fresh content because it makes me money from the AVS. I don't pursue the yearly members but I do try to upsell them to the Premium monthly rebilling programs because that's where the money is. I do save my best content for my PlusVideo/Platinum galleries so the yearly members need to upgrade their memberships to get to the good stuff.
Hehe, that's what I was thinking. But this guy actually seems more coherent. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt 26z
I can see that, its just that I look at my members site like you do your PlusVideo/Platinum galleries. I don’t want to just give away the farm. I like most AVS sites its just that I want to have my own site, I have made allot of sales for other people its time I did the same for myself. I really want to start to build a name for myself for the future, another reason I focus on twink stuff, but not exclusively. In fact I am about to add Hard Gay Feeds to my system today.