Straight guys creating/marketing Gay sites

[Squirt]

Am I the only one who's seen an influx of Gay sites, straight owned, that have a bangin front page and tour.. but are VERY thin on content? I've had subscribers to my sites email me about what they call "rip off" sites.

I have no problem with straight people marketing Gay sites, or vice versa ( I have a site with lots of straight sex ) , but I do have a problem with the guys taking our traffic and ripping off subscribers and making them more paranoid about signing up with other sites.

What do you think about this? What has your experience been?

[Lee]

Squirt,

I would tend to agree with you on the basis of this debate however, it should also be pointed out that it isnt only indicative of the gay market, or, straight webmasters / companies.

In fact, i could point out countless amounts of straight sites (both gay and straight owned) that do this exact same thing.

I do however feel that when it comes to the gay market to some extent, the fault does lie with the owners of such sites who have the mindset that they need to flood the industry with as many sites as possible whilst not knowing enough information about the types of markets or niches that they have paysites for. Im going to see if i can get Sarah from Webinc over here to reply to this thread to as she and i have had a conversation on a similar topic to this a few months ago specifically about how many of the straight webmasters treat others in the industry both male, female, gay and straight.

Of course back with the topic at hand, i think part of the issue specifically with the gay sites side of things is that many of the straight companies who do operate gay websites really have no clue what they are doing because they look at us as just another niche which as everyone here knows, we arent

IMHO it all boils down to they want to make money in the gay market however they really dont know enough about it or, where to find further information about the variety of niches we have and of course, there are also those webmasters who do know where to find the information but because they have a fear of being ridiculed by posting on 'perceived' gay boards by their peers they wont ask for or, accept our help

Then there are those webmasters who are straight and think they know everything about the gay market whilst continually goading gay surfers and webmasters because they seem to think they have more right to be correct all of the time despite the reality that they really know nothing and most of what those individuals think they do know, is either stale information that worked several years ago or is complete mis-information given to them by people who know no better.

Will be good to see what everyone else on GWW thinks about this topic too i know from past conversations with various community members there are some strong feelings about this subject overall :thumbsup:

Regards,

Lee

[Squirt]

Thanks for the information. I think that sites like this that are marketing Badpuppy are doing it no favors. They are diluting the BadPuppy brand name and when surfers see the Badpuppy logo on sites they will start to equate it with that site that looked real hot, with lots of content, that only had a few galleries and a video.

I totally agree with you on every point you made in your post.

We are obviously not a niche.. but the Gay market does have niches and most straight companies have no idea how to market the Gay web. My only fear, from seeing the influx of these straight owned, cookie cutter sites, is that they burn surfers and take up so much traffic, that they are starting to do harm to our business. What do you think about this?

You are right about the straight webmasters goading Gay webmasters and surfers, thinking they know it all. Their information is clearly old. How do we deal with this?

[sarahwebinc]

Well, as a member of the BBW community I think our two communities suffer the same fate in many ways when it comes to our industry. Both have been invaded by webmasters who are repulsed by us and what we do but who think there is a quick buck in exploiting our community. It shows in the sites bg time if you are a member of the community yourself. Ddon't even get me started on the number of times I see 'chubby chaser' on a straight themed BBW site or when they aruge with me that BBW stands for big busty women and not big beautiful woman ..pick a fight with someone who is a bit more clueless kids.

The other thing is that on public industry boards I will see people that represent programs with these sites being very insulting towards big women and the same goes for being insulting towards gay men while having a banner for a program with a gay site in your sig. Now, I have a buisness head but beyond that I have my pride and I am now making it a point of writing to program owners when someone flying their banner is being abusive towards a BBW on a board and letting them know why I will be taking banners down. Why should I pay these people to insult me?

Yet, the funny thing is that at the convention and on icq, I have some of these SAME people coming to me and asking me for advice in the niche. Too wimpy to talk that way to me in the flesh.

[Squirt]

I have to say that I've experienced this as well on one board I've posted at lately. I've posted on a few boards a while back and had no problems. One board I've been posting at lately has a straight guy promoting Gay turnkey sites. I know he watches this board as well. When I post trying to help there... I'm treated like an idiot and an adversary.

It's frustrating because on one hand you don't like what they're doing, but want to help them be successful so we can all make some money and they can do things right. On the other hand, after being treated unfairly it makes you just want to close the industry to outsiders and keep it for our own.

If you're straight and want to make money great.. let's do it! I know a couple straight guys in the industry that are top notch, know what they're selling and do good business. But don't be straight, come to the Gay web and rip off our community and think we'll stand idly by.

[Matt 26z]

I said two years ago that the overall quality of gay sites online was about to go down the toilet.

People need to stick to the niches they know and love themselves. Anything else and it's just a shot in the dark. The most you can do is attempt to emulate the genuine sites from the niche and hope you get it right.

With gay sites, no straight webmasters have ever gotten it right that I've seen except for maybe stud sites since even a straight man knows what a "real man" looks like.

[Squirt]

Well I'm doing some SEO today and am amazed at the number of cookie cutter, obviously straight owned, sites there are taking up the top spots. I'll have to do something about that :-D Bummer it takes so long for SEO to show results.

Funny how the first few pages of the results under "straight guy" are for Queer eye for a straight guy.. bleah!

The good thing about this is that when surfers do come across the quality sites with quality content they will appreciate it much more. In the end, content is king and these guys aren't about to go out and film gay sex for a buck HA HA HA and only so much quality Gay content they can buy.

[sarahwebinc]

just imagine what us bi and lesbian chicks think when we see 99.9 percent of lesbian sites out there

[Squirt]

Originally posted by sarahwebinc
just imagine what us bi and lesbian chicks think when we see 99.9 percent of lesbian sites out there

I could only imagine what it must be like coming across site after site promoting your lifestyle as a "niche" and content that is created/produced not for the bi/lesbian women, but to fulfill the fantasies of straight men. You're a smart cookie.. I'm sure you use it to your advantage :-D

[sarahwebinc]

Well, we all should because there is some truth to the notion that the more crap and obviously clueless sites there are out there the more valuable the quality sites that properly adress the market become. You were very right when you seperated out the terms market and niche. The clueless ones will treat gay as a niche (and BBW for that matter) and just do a shot in the dark at general sites but totally blank out (because they don't know) the niches WITHIN the market. I bet half of them don't even think of gay people having a large number of the same fetishes that straight people do..shock!

[Bec]

Originally posted by sarahwebinc
just imagine what us bi and lesbian chicks think when we see 99.9 percent of lesbian sites out there

Now there's a depressing subject to go with my morning coffee ... sigh. There should really be another "title" for sites that cater to the 2 women fantasy ... cause those sites sure aren't for or about lesbianism.

[RainGurl]

yes the lesbian market is a tough one. even when someone does create a truly lesbian site, for lesbians, it is overwhelmed by huge amount of sites that are aimed at straight men. it would be pretty tough to successfully market a true lesbian site to that community

[Evil Chris]

Originally posted by Bec
Now there's a depressing subject to go with my morning coffee ... sigh. There should really be another "title" for sites that cater to the 2 women fantasy ... cause those sites sure aren't for or about lesbianism.

Bec, you've got me wondering now. Can you show me a lesbian (sex) site targetted to true lesbians? I feel like I'm getting a bit of an education in this thread.

[Squirt]

Originally posted by RainGurl
yes the lesbian market is a tough one. even when someone does create a truly lesbian site, for lesbians, it is overwhelmed by huge amount of sites that are aimed at straight men. it would be pretty tough to successfully market a true lesbian site to that community

I'm curious.. is www.lesbo101.com what lesbian women really want? I came across this site a while back and thought if I was a lesbian, I'd like this site. What do the lesbians/bi girls here think of this site?

Bec.. I think a good name for a site created for the straight man .. lesbian fantasy should be "fantasy girls" . Usually I could come up with a whole list.. but it's 7:14 am here and I haven't had my coffee yet LOL

[Bec]

No, lesbo101 is built for the male market. A group of lesbians did have a network of sites up at one time and marketed under cyberdyke.net but that seems to be down now. The only still active one that I see from that group is the BDSM site by Darkplay.

As to marketing a true lesbian porn site to lesbians/bi sexual women, it'd almost have to play off as a subniche on a 4women site, or be able to find some mainstream sites/chat rooms/magazines/local community newspapers, etc that are targeted at the lesbian community that would run an ad. The biggest part of its success I think would rely heavily on word of mouth, and we all are aware of just how fast the gay community can let other "family members" know what's going on via emails and IM's!

A pretty good "giveaway" on whether it's for men or actually for lesbians is the amount of camera eye contact - there should be little to none, are both women in highheels, lotta makeup, long ass fingernails ...ouch!... & are there really any sets that show butch/femme women? Is there actual cunniligus or is it faked? And is there a real community feel attached to what's offered? Are the products aimed at women or men? Just some points to consider.