VOD: AEBN or MaleFlixxx?

I am planning to sign up to one of those 2 VOD site in the next few weeks/month both as an affiliate and as a studio, content provider. I was wondering if you might have any comments about those 2 contestants based on few points:

1-Template customization
2-Payouts/Reliability/Money
3-Traffic & conversion
4-Content management from a studio point of view

Anything else that I should know about?
(I know that debate has been covered in the past but I can only find threads from 2007 and I guess the industry is moving so fast that it might have changed since)

I'd say neither talk to Monica at Moviedollars.

Neither AEBN or Maleflixxx have proper SEO for a hosted studio site so you would be wasting your brand. Both sites only use numbers in URL which tells nothing to the engines. Also the templates for both are not really customizable at all.

Moviedollars will pretty much build your theater from ground zero it's fully SEO'd actually keywords in URL's and anchor text.

You do of course want content sold through AEBN and Maleflixxx for the additional sales but don't expect a theater set up through them to rank that well

I'm a former PPC/SEO Monkey

I'll be curious to learn of your experience with MaleFlixxxxxxxxxx, as in my case it's been almost 4 years and they have not approved my studio. At last check, they said someone discarded my submitted content.

During the same time period, I have been with the best of the rest...

For those webmasters here looking for a new promotion activity, I do have some content on Moviedollars which you could promote, and earn from (paid direct from Moviedollars). PM's invited.

They both are great companies.

Maleflixx tends to look better but AEBN has more traffic.
To get around some URL issues you can always do what is called "cname" in your DNS.

Take for example my 1980's design for boysinclive.com.
By working with the cname all the urls are now "boysinclive.com". Although that is with AEBN. AEBN supports cnames via their admin control panel.

Maleflixx can do the same but you have to contact them.
Take for exmaple my 1981 design http://gaytwinkslive.com/
THat is with Maleflixx but the URLs will not give that away. Maleflix will want you to "give them" your domain name but I suggest you talk to them about that more.

Summary:

Maleflix looks better
AEBN has more traffic and more control

How about both?
Domain names are pretty cheap or create 2nd level domain names.

Thanks for adding about customization. That's what I was a bit worried about with AEBN and Maleflixxx. It seems really hard to adapt the whole console to look like something decent and not like a photocopy of "an other VOD site with the color changed".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DirtyNick

I'd say neither talk to Monica at Moviedollars.
Moviedollars will pretty much build your theater from ground zero it's fully SEO'd actually keywords in URL's and anchor text.

You do of course want content sold through AEBN and Maleflixxx for the additional sales but don't expect a theater set up through them to rank that well

I'm a former PPC/SEO Monkey

---

I understand your feelings.
I also have the same issues.

If you are at the phoenix forum pull me aside.
There are some other lower cost alternatives that you could use that also gives you 100% control.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by steven619

I understand your feelings.
I also have the same issues.

If you are at the phoenix forum pull me aside.
There are some other lower cost alternatives that you could use that also gives you 100% control.

---

I can only afford one traveling a year to those events and I went to the XBiz already. But everybody tells me that the PhoenixForum is the place to be for gay webmasters so I guess next year I'll try to get there!

Thanks ;)

AEBN has always performed good for me as an affiliate, plus they have always paid out on time too! I have not tried maleflixx or moviedollars.

Just to pop in real quick and give you a poke -

My name is Trevor , and I'm currently the guy in charge of new gay content submittals at AEBN - I figured I'd drop in and give you my opinion. I always recommend to all of my new studios when this question comes up, that they go with as many different VOD providers as possible. This opens the door to as many different sources of income as possible and is in my mind the -best- option for a studio to grow, especially in the economic uncertainty floating around at large these days. While occasionally the traffic from the bigger players in the VOD market do of course cross, it's always best for a studio to get as much branding done as possible - it's one of the foundations. Whenever you get the time, I'd be more than happy to give you some more detailed info about

Our standard contracts are always non-exclusive, and never have any requirements as far as requiring you to use a template from us on your website (though we'd totally love for you to).

On the subject of the templates, we do offer several solutions for the SEO problem that Nick brought up - meta-tags and the extended func. features within the theatre pages themselves, as well as the ability to c-name a theatre to any other url available that you have the right to use.

As far as customization, you (or your webmaster if you have one that's not you) are more than welcome totally tweak your theatre with your own CSS coding, and work with our guys on the tech side. This does allow you to have a -huge- number of options open and available to you. For an example of a pretty tricked out theatre, go check out adultemart.com - the guys over there have done some absolutely -amazing- mods to the theatre system.

I have to confess that I'm not at all a tech-monkey on the affiliate side of the lube, but if you've got any specific questions about the template and their customization, etc. I'll be more than happy to get our guru in to help. ;)

Pop me over a PM, or an email and I'd be more than happy to shoot you back some more info.

Kindest,

~Kush
Trevor

I would strongly suggest AEBN. This is where our main revenue stream comes from. But why just go with one or two?

If you make $100 with 5-8 or whatever providers, that's $800. Every penny adds up.

I wouldn't suggest MaleFlix. They wanted to carry us a couple years ago. Sent them the DVDs, packages, etc. I didn't hear from them after 2 months. Finally a call was placed to them, their response was they rejected us because we have bareback content and they said their big studios won't be associated with Bareback content. They have a lot of Bareback Content.
Maleflixxx chooses and picks what studios they want.

AEBN will take great care of you.

i am using both of these sponsors at the moment but have made sales only with aebn right now

Just a helpful note. Though you can do a lot with AEBN template they may not always be helpful. Here is what I got back from my AEBN rep today.

----------
As far of CSS, If you select View Source you can see a link to the CSS code. Everything Adult Emart has done they did on their own. Basically modifying the CSS is sort of "at your own risk". While no damage can be done, we don't offer support to help you do it, and if you do mess up the look, we'll just have you reset it back to default.

----------

Don't let that scare you but it shows that you really are on your own.
I'm lucky enough to know enough about CSS to work around their 1980's template system.

The upside, at least you have more control over the layout of your AEBN feeder / theater then you do with other VOD companies.

I have made some tests recently and managed to heavily modify their CSS. But even with that it still looks like a AEBN template. I mean both companies will have to put more flexibility in their system. It is so passé!

Here's the test site where I've made some modifications with AEBN template. Let me know if you have any ideas how to modify it deeply:
http://www.gayfruits.tv

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by steven619

Don't let that scare you but it shows that you really are on your own.
I'm lucky enough to know enough about CSS to work around their 1980's template system.

---

It looks nice. Would look BETTER if my titles were showing :) :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jeremyroddick

Here's the test site where I've made some modifications with AEBN template. Let me know if you have any ideas how to modify it deeply:
http://www.gayfruits.tv

---

The site is looking good. Yes, it still look like AEBN if you are a pro porn surfer but better then most sites.

I agree, a little more control over the layout would be great. I had to talk to one of the programmers yesterday and it came down to webmasters are limited to base CSS. The example that Trevor (AEBN) gave in this thread is a full custom design using parts of their code. But it had to have taken them weeks if not months to go through.

For an average webmaster what you have done is 100% better and is all you need. I just took my new design live at www.boyinclive.com and it does look better then before. Now I can add 20 more feeder sites using the base template, change the cname, and add a custom banner with some focused template.

One word of caution. If AEBN updates their system it could break some CSS. Check your site often or talk to your AEBN to notify you. My new rep gave me the heads up and I appreciate that. I would rather know it could happen and be prepared.. then get caught off guard.

Next challenge.. Maleflix mods.
I'm working on that next week when their back end guy gets back from vacation. They are all working harder now that sales are down.

It is hard to build a template system that gives you fully "SMARTY TEMPLATE" control without the risk of having to teach the weekend webmaster how to code. Good and bad I guess. But it is still better then we had 10 years ago when I first started.

Ahaha! Your sites would look better too if you would have my website banners on it! I'm sure we can both arrange that! :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nickbaer

It looks nice. Would look BETTER if my titles were showing :) :)

---

Thanks Steeven for the brilliant tips. By the way I wanted to go visit your BoyInClive site but the url seems to be down.

Sure. Are you processing with CCBill so I can use my affiliate code asap?


This would be a question for you AND Steven: How much selection control do you have over the titles on such a page as Jeremy's sample?

e.g. I have a line of content on AEBN suitable for 1) women and 2) men who like the Playgirl style of non-sexual fine art nude male niche genre. It accounts - on average - for 33%-50% of my monthly revenue.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jeremyroddick

Ahaha! Your sites would look better too if you would have my website banners on it! I'm sure we can both arrange that! :)

---

The link would work better if I would type it correctly.

www.boysinclive.com

You know what they say about big hands..
Yup.. big fingers that can't type.

The site was developed years ago for a VOD option for boysinc.com.
Then the merchant account folks said I had to remove a "3rd party" vod from my shopping cart because of risk issues. I have yet to understand that since AEBN does the credit card processing for the VOD, not boysinc's merchant account. But.. I don't argue anymore.. I just try to find a way around that rule.

Hence.. GayAdultBlog.com that feeds both AEBN, Boysinc retail sales, MaleFlixx.. and even membership sites (like yours).

I just have to figure out a way that I can add the link back to boysinc that the merchant account underwrites will approve. Summertime project I guess. Then again, they made me remove a video .. Rad Video's American Way II, that had a horse in the background. Yes.. in the background.. because they thought I was selling videos that included sex with animals. Oh.. the stories...

Both are reputable companies in my experience.

Regards,

Lee

I too had a not so great experience with Maleflixxx/Sureflix.

I was basically told that they are looking for hardcore content and ours didn't fit this criteria. This made zero since to me as I the content I was going to submit is by anyone's definition, hardcore... I think they just didn't like my content. That's perfectly fine but it would have been nice if they would just say that...

derekt said he was rejected because he has bareback content. That could be the reason for us being rejected too but like he said, they do have a lot of bareback content listed.

They also seemed more interested in pushing their affiliate program on me than getting our content listed.

Like most others have said here, go with as many VOD sites as possible. We've had decent results from most we've dealt with so far.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by nickbaer

I'll be curious to learn of your experience with MaleFlixxxxxxxxxx, as in my case it's been almost 4 years and they have not approved my studio. At last check, they said someone discarded my submitted content.

During the same time period, I have been with the best of the rest...

---

This is pretty much par for the course. I've never seen any evidence that Maleflixxx gives a crap about studios. It took us almost a year, with every excuse in the book, 3 separate submissions of our videos which they claimed were "lost in the mail" even though we had proof they'd signed for them, and then several different commitments to get our content online, none of which were honored, and finally, after personally cornering several different Maleflixxx staff at Phoenix Forum and extracting an ironclad commitment, they finally got our content live... 3 months after the ironclad commitment date promised.

Now... once we were live with them, they actually have done pretty well, but as far as getting calls returned or getting any sort of follow up on the studio side, it's still like pulling teeth. And this hasn't changed over 3 years.

On the affiliate side, it's a completely different story. They will roll out the red carpet and fall all over themselves to make you happy, they do have a lot more flexibility than AEBN does, and if you promote their scene-based model, you'll make more money than on a per-minute model.