I'm back -- what affiliates have changed lately?

[GayGeek]

Hi folks,

At the risk of sounding like I'm asking everyone to do my homework for me, I was hoping that the affiliates on here might be able to give me a prod if they've changed their business significantly lately. By this I mean added new sites, closed or merged old ones, changed billing companies (thereby requiring new affiliate links), etc.

I run GayGeek (www.gaygeek.com), and have taken the past six months off from my business because my husband and I adopted a baby boy. My day-to-day manager of the business has kept the site intact and running, but things have fallen through the cracks and it's time for me to step in and give the site some lovin'. Actually, he's turned in his resignation and we're transitioning the business back to me, so it's high time I rededicate myself to the site.

I'll be posting a message in a week or so asking affiliates to take a look at their site pages on there and tell me what I've got wrong (I'm sure some of the info, especially prices or video content options are now a bit behind the times). For the moment though, I wanna catch up on critical matters, such as affiliates that have significantly changed and sorting out my bookkeeping.

Your assistance is appreciated!

--Aaron

PS, It's a boy. He's six months old now, and the adoption will be finalized in March. And yes, I'm ecstatically happy with my new life.

[nickbaer]

Hi Sweetie - (that's what Penny calls Sheldon on Big Bang Theory - I think it has a new flavor)...

Do you license any of your photos / solo videos from the 90s/00s?

[GayGeek]

I don't, actually. The videos are about 2/3 still available. With the changes in 2257 laws regarding foreign IDs I decided not to re-release some of them when I put them back into availability. In another case, a model died so out of respect for his family I didn't re-release that video. Still others were filmed with one-color chip cameras in the late 90's so the color is really bland and awful.

But as I said, they're about 2/3 still available although they've mostly run their course as far as sales go. I never bothered to license them except to AMVC (which sells 'em on DVD) and AEBN. Beyond that I think the amount of money involved would be too little to bother with.

As for the photo sets, I think that their value wouldn't be all that great. They were designed for a different Internet age when bandwidth was a bigger issue and people didn't look at photos in very high resolution. Today's monitors would make the pictures look unacceptably small. And, due to bad planning on my part, I didn't keep un-sized (but post-photo edited) versions of the photos on all the sets. So a lot of them can't be shown very well without re-doing all the photo selection and editing. Not to mention some of the foreign ID issues come into play here, although far less of an issue than the videos as I did the photos a few years later chronologically.

All this is my way of saying, "nope, never licensed 'em. Don't think anyone would be interested beyond a cursory glance and it would be more trouble than it's worth."

So, back to my main question, what's up with affiliate programs and changes in the past 6-12 months? I know Hunk Money acquired two affiliate programs. What else has been going on?

[HunkyLuke]

Hi Aaron, welcome back and congrats on the new baby!

Here's what has happened in my world in the past 6 months:
- July HunkMoney relaunched BarebackVids with a new tour
- Aug we relaunched xxxAsianGays with a new tour
- Sept we relaunched JocksCocks with a new tour
- Oct HunkMoney became the first gay program fully certified by WebsiteSecure as an ethically run online adult business
- Nov we released BlackStudVids
- Dec we announced we acquired BritishBucks and all its 7 paysites, we also released 6 new RSS feeds for the BritishBucks sites
- Jan we announced we acquired AlexanderBucks and its 2 paysites. We have rebranded it as LatinoBucks and have merged BrazilianDicks into NATS (affiliate url code change is required before March 1st)

[nickbaer]

Speaking of ch-ch-changes... I know the population here is a bit smaller than before I went to Europe last summer and then toured around the US for a few months...

But I'm curious why no one has ventured any expert analysis (gossip) about the roller coaster ride up North in Canada with XTube?

I know there was a momentary thread last Nov on De Mean Girls board in the UK, but I grow weary of deleting their cookies so I can kludge around... since bassbitch won't let me be a member there...

[nickbaer]

Or, X On Demand??

[PFLJayden]

Here's what has happened in my world in the past 6 months:
- July HunkMoney relaunched BarebackVids with a new tour
- Aug we relaunched xxxAsianGays with a new tour
- Sept we relaunched JocksCocks with a new tour
- Oct HunkMoney became the first gay program fully certified by WebsiteSecure as an ethically run online adult business
- Nov we released BlackStudVids
- Dec we announced we acquired BritishBucks and all its 7 paysites, we also released 6 new RSS feeds for the BritishBucks sites
- Jan we announced we acquired AlexanderBucks and its 2 paysites. We have rebranded it as LatinoBucks and have merged BrazilianDicks into NATS (affiliate url code change is required before March 1st)

So luke, what's expected for february and march? seems your on a good running streak. congrats. glad we are of help to keep you running -affiliate- :heartu:

[Seth]

Hi Aaron,

Congratulations on your baby boy!

We launched http://www.SUCKoffGUYS.com a few months ago and just this week officially relaunched our old member site http://www.GUYSonVIDEO.com.

Did you ever have a membership site for your videos? I don't recall ever seeing one. I've seen a lot of your work and I'd guess you could still make some nice revenue off your library aside from VOD & DVD. Just a thought...

Anyway, good luck with GayGeek & welcome back!

[HunkyLuke]

So luke, what's expected for february and march? seems your on a good running streak. congrats. glad we are of help to keep you running -affiliate- :heartu:

We are planning loads more affiliate tools, like new blogs, tubes, feeds, exclusive content mailers (the first BritishBucks mailer goes out this week), promo clips, etc. Plus we have new paysites ready to launch. And we have a big change to payout rates which I am sure you guys will LOVE!!!

[jeremyroddick]

Hey Aaron, welcome back in this sinful world and congratulations on the new baby!

[GayGeek]

Thank you all for the kind words. I'm not feeling particularly parental this evening though. All babies spit up, but today my son threw up for the first time... all over me. Total mess, and my husband ran up and down the house yelling that he couldn't find anything to wipe up the mess with. It was one of those moments in life that I'd rather forget.

I'm busy diving back into GayGeek. Boy does the clutter pile up while I'm not working. Websites close and merge, affiliate links go bad, reviews become outdated and letters from annoyed webmasters abound. My manager did a good job keeping on top of this as best he could, but he was only part-time and this job needs a full-time staffer (two, really).

So I'm going through piles of work on the site. It'll literally take me over a year to do everything that needs to be done (ever try gathering non-explicit promo pictures for 750+ websites?), but I'm turning my attention now to some of the affiliate programs staffers/webmasters that hang out here on GWW. Y'all are kind enough to respond to my questions when I ask, so bumping your sites to the top of my "to do" pile is the least I can do in return.

Anyway, just wanted to let some of you know that I'll be getting in touch with you shortly. HunkMoney alone will take me a couple of days to do (longer if my son keeps throwing up), but the others that have responded to this thread shouldn't take as long. Unless some of you have been buying up rival affiliate programs and not telling me about it.

Anyway, thanks again for the kind words.

[HunkyLuke]

Take your time, mate, and make sure you aren't taking too much time away from your family