How The Mighty Have Fallen

[maxpower]

Once upon a time All Twinks “zooted.com” was a leader in the gay adult world, now they can not even pay affiliates on time or at all in some cases. To me this is a really sad fact, after all they where the first affiliate program I ever found success with. Now even with a free trial and 35$ pay-out for those free trials tt converts at about 1 in 1000 or worse and can not even keep billing up to date for anyone. :rip:

Maybe its just this guys lack of reinvention, but this does worry me, if this once HUGE site now can not pay their bills what hope is there for many of us. How the hell could someone that had so much fuck it up this bad? :loser:

[chadknowslaw]

I have not looked at that site nor followed its business history, but it is not uncommon for a website to rise quickly on the backs of its hardworking founders.
Then, as money starts to roll in, those that put in long hours for low pay start working less hours and taking more pay. Duties are passed off to paid help. The hired help do not put in the creative effort of an owner and the site no longer is new and fresh in the marketplace. Retention drops, sales drop, and the business does not contract quickly enough. It is easy to add new hires but rookie business owners are hesitant to lay someone off because usually they remember what it was like to be an employee or else pride keeps them from cutting staff. There is not a staff accountant that can see the warning flags in the cash flows and the company reaches a crisis where it must sell out or shut down.

Some never make it that far. The fascination of selling sex and the expectation of easy money do not make a successful webmaster. Long hours and hard work make successful webmasters! [and any other profession] The companies that are successful have leaders that still put in long days and still contribute creative talent to their companies.
Lots of companies have been a flash in the pan, thought they hit the big time and got lazy then faded away. The ones that kept working long days week after week and month after month and year after year are still successful though. ;-)
This is a great business to be in, but it takes hard work, dedication, talent, and stamina to stay.

[maxpower]

The only thing is that I would never call “even now” All Twink a flash in the pan site or program. That site has to be in the top 5 or so Twink sites ever created!! The whole thing is just insane to me, personally with the ranking, reputation, and content this guy has I could turn things around for him in 6 weeks. He has now even move out of the US to Mexico, if he does not care about his site anymore I would be more than happy to take it over for him.

You are very right about the whole EMP stuff, to tell the truth I really hate to deal with most EMP’s. I can say if I ever get the chance to run a site of that caliber, this WILL NEVER HAPPEN TO ME!!! I will do what ever it takes, and will never relinquish control of my site to people that can not even run a successful program on their own.

[hunkhunter]

Hmmmmmm. I dumped them over 6 months ago.

[maxpower]

Hmmmmmm. I dumped them over 6 months ago.

Ya I would have drooped them already too man, but I really do have some lingering loyalty to them. Its not that I give them much traffic anymore, but shit man its really hard for me to even grasp how he could have fucked things up this bad. I am sure sooner or later they will catch up my back checks “like they have done in the past” Catty their clickman rep it great, its just for me its mind-boggling that this has happened :rip:

[Matt 26z]

Every gay adult site from the boom era is either dead or has a drastically smaller market share today. Those still around are riding on early name branding since most of their sites are lackluster by 2006 standards.

I recall AllTwinks, and I'm sure they made a nice profit. Top 5 twink site ever? Not a chance.

Their domain is from late 98, but archive.org shows they were an AVS site up until the start of 2000. So there is no way they were ever a "leader in the gay adult world." BoyBoy dominated the twink category in the late 90's before losing ground to innovative competition around 2000.

That's the story of business online though.

[maxpower]

Well man, I dont know why you would think they are not one of the top 5 twink sites in history, still #1 under twinks in yahoo and have to be one of the most recognized twink sites in the world. Boyboy “twinks.com” and Teencocks.com are old school and yes gone the way of the buggy whip, but AllTwinks even in 2000 was a much bigger site than they ever where. I really don’t see how someone could put in so much time a trouble to build a program just to give up with out a real fight at all. Ya maybe that site could get used up, but just make more and better sites! :crazyeyes:

[basschick]

i don't think zooted was ever a major power.

[Lee]

i don't think zooted was ever a major power.

No they werent LOL

From what i recall, they started having problems within 12 months of their 'affiliate program' launch with late payments etc, in fact, i can remember a whole 2 years where people avoided them like the plague.

Regards,

Lee

[maxpower]

Well I really would be hard pressed to name 10 larger twink affiliate programs, even now days. My view might be a bit sewed on this, after all they were my first and all, I really do not see how you could not see them as one of the largest and most visited twink sites in the world. Just look at their ranking, in yahoo they are #1 listed by traffic that should say something at least. As far as zooted’s other sites ya they are really unknowns as far as I know.

[cheapdick]

Be careful as the Tides Do Turn...

[maxpower]

No they werent LOL

From what i recall, they started having problems within 12 months of their 'affiliate program' launch with late payments etc, in fact, i can remember a whole 2 years where people avoided them like the plague.

Regards,

Lee

Until about 1 year ago I never had a problem with payments at all, they did hold back like 1 ½ - 2 months maybe that were you get that, but they have always been very reliable in the past. :bullcrap:

[maxpower]

Sorry they are #3 right now but still http://dir.yahoo.com/Business_and_Ec...leries/Twinks/ “they where #1 not to long ago” If you don’t recognize them as a leader that’s fine, but viewers still do. :signhere:

[tombarr]

does twinks .com not convert anymore?

[maxpower]

does twinks .com not convert anymore?

Don’t really know man, but they are ranked really high “#1” must be a whole lot of people promoting them so I would not think they would convert that good. The more people that promote a site the quicker the numbers start to go down, now this is ok for the site itself but its better for affiliates to look for something fresh to offer. And twink .com has not trial, really old models, kinda a poor tour “1999”, and a 29.95 price tag so I would be shocked if it did.

Now I do know that Alltwinks.com is converting about 1 in 1000 to 1 in 1400 or so, but that’s just cuzz most people have joined that site already at one time or another.