How many preview clips are enough...

[TropixxxStudios]

On my site, I show a brief 30 second clip (sometimes shorter) of each weekly update.

http://www.tropixxxvip.com/PublicAre...ages/Main.html

My problem now is that I am noticing that these are taking up a lot of bandwith.

Is there a better way to do this? Or should I simply reduce the number of preview clips? etc.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[basschick]

trailers do use a lot of bandwidth. instead of changing anything on the trailer, having them embedded on a page with sales pitch and an easy join link might make more sales.

or at least make obvious join links next to the trailer links - it makes no sense to have a trailer without a spot to impulse buy like this:
http://www.hotmomnextdoor.com/

or else after each trailer in the same table cell, say something like

Click here to see the entire video
or
Click to download
or something.

trailers aren't useful if you make it hard to find the join link

[gaybucks_chip]

Two other options:

1. Make the trailer a low-resolution trailer, and put a tag that says that (something like "low-res preview. Members enjoy 640x480 1Mbps streams" )

2. Get another server with dirt-cheap bandwidth somewhere and host the trailers on that server, but host the rest of your site on your regular server. That way, if you have reliability or bandwidth problems, the whole site doesn't go down or get slow. Bonus is you can use the rest of the bandwidth on the cheapo server for galleries or whatever.

[TropixxxStudios]

Basschick,
Excellent point. I will be redoing the design of them this week. And Chip, like always, good advice. I will look into that. - michael

[basschick]

i like 2 better than 1. when you go to sees candy, they don't give you an inferior piece of candy and tell you "our real stuff tastes better". also his samples are only 320x240 as it is.

did you look at the page? there's no join links around the samples anywhere - or at least anywhere that stands out.

Two other options:

1. Make the trailer a low-resolution trailer, and put a tag that says that (something like "low-res preview. Members enjoy 640x480 1Mbps streams" )

2. Get another server with dirt-cheap bandwidth somewhere and host the trailers on that server, but host the rest of your site on your regular server. That way, if you have reliability or bandwidth problems, the whole site doesn't go down or get slow. Bonus is you can use the rest of the bandwidth on the cheapo server for galleries or whatever.

[TropixxxStudios]

Basschick,
I actually liked your advice the best, and plan to TOTALLY re-design my preview areas. The way I did them does not lend to easy change or addition of JOIN buttons, so i am going to take the weekend and do something totally different. Yeah, my preview clips are small in size, because I was worried about bandiwth to begin with. But I think by re-designing the entire preview area, then incorporating some of Chips ideas, I could have the best of both worlds. - Michael

[mgillis]

Hey There,

As an aside, I can't get the Windows Media clips to play and I can't find anything on my end to explain it - you may want to dig.

How much free is too much free is a good question, but Basschick is leading you in the right direction.
Invest in some tracking tools too, so you can tell what parts of your free area are pushing the most conversions - that will tell you instantly how many free clips you need.

AND... consider fewer free clips available at any given time. Perhaps you only have 3 or 4 actually showing, but rotate new clips into those spots daily or weekly to keep your free area fresh and get repeat traffic. Guys who come back every couple of weeks and see new clips may be more incented to join due to the amount of fresh content that the refresh rate indicates.

Best of luck with this!

Oh, and one more thing (off topic). I understand the addition of red because it is in your logo, but red is probably the hardest colour for eyes to process on a computer screen. You'll get your surfers to stay longer if the background is making their eyes boggle. I'm one of those people who has a really tough time with red sites, and the side nav bar has enough red to set me a-twitching! Hope you don't mind me saying this, I figure honest feedback is always the best feedback.

Cheers!!

[IdolKnights]

Listening to the follow up Howard Stern 101 show "Bubba the Love Sponge" - they had a good 15 minuts spot on how they jerk off to samples and only see the inside of a site when someone gives them the password.

They then started listing sites with the better, longer clips

After about 5 minutes of listing the sites, they did a revisit and said the sites were down or running slow. "We melted this bitch"

It's quite a comment on how many people sit and look for the free clips.

The end of the segment went something like this - "Fuck man, this disco music shit is annoing. Turn the volume down, that's better" "God... look at her puss."

[basschick]

imo someone who makes a hobby out of looking for free porn - or free anything - isn't going to be buying no matter what you do. my daughter loves free stuff and she belongs to free stuff communities. after seeing how hard they work at finding stuff free, i can see that they aren't going to buy things online even if they like them - getting it free is the thing.

so why not focus on the people who want to buy, or are at least open to buying. you can't sell a membership to everyone, but some reality sites have trailers of each model on the first page, and those sites sell like mad. heck, when they're new and unexposed, they sell almost like magic.

the best trailers don't just put up 15 - 30 seconds on the video. they create a short clip that builds the anticipation and excitement. they don't have empty space - they're a real trailer, like a mainstream movie trailer. i always go to see movies when the trailers make the video seem interesting and fun to me, and porn trailers can do the same thing.

Listening to the follow up Howard Stern 101 show "Bubba the Love Sponge" - they had a good 15 minuts spot on how they jerk off to samples and only see the inside of a site when someone gives them the password.

They then started listing sites with the better, longer clips

After about 5 minutes of listing the sites, they did a revisit and said the sites were down or running slow. "We melted this bitch"

It's quite a comment on how many people sit and look for the free clips.

The end of the segment went something like this - "Fuck man, this disco music shit is annoing. Turn the volume down, that's better" "God... look at her puss."