Feeds & Paysites

[CJ-KJCash]

The majority of the content on our sites is exclusive and made by us. I think that is the key factor in our really high retention rate. The fact that we have stuff that they cant see anywhere else.

However, we do use the AEBN leased feeds on our site and our members do use and enjoy them. Not that we hear lots of good comments when they are running fine, but let them be down for a bit and we will get some heated emails from our members.

We initially chose them because they have a gay asian feed of 4 movies per month. It was sort of funny this month when I went to check a reported problem with the feeds and found our dvd featured on there.

I do follow the stats on feed usage and was surprized to find the amount of stuff outside our niche the members are looking at. Kind of fun to be able to see which niches are the most popular in planning for future development.

I dont think feeds bring down the value of exclusve content at all. I think they are pretty different things and serve different purposes. I dont see how anyone can expect to put together a site that is nothing but feeds and make any money, and one of those was recently pointed out to me. All I could think is there are so many sites you could get all those feeds plus some real content from the owner of the site, why would anyone stay with a site that was feeds only.

[Bec]

Yea, the feeds only sites confused me too. Seems they'd be traffic dependent, as I doubt they really retain. I can see some old school programs not having to fret so much on traffic sources at this point, but new sites with just feeds and nothing else ... I'm not seeing how they could survive. I think the surfers now want sites that actually offer what the tour is selling, and that's content that fulfills that niche.

[CJ-KJCash]

Yeah, funny thing was, the site I saw, it looked like they had just taken every feed graphic their vendor provided and slapped them up. These was no meaningful text, so I wouldnt thnk they were getting much search engine traffic. And on top of that the site was still using frames.

[Xstr8guy]

What I can' understand is how a site can survive only from leased content alone. One of our most active board members has a site that has nearly every feed available. Each feed costs either X amount per member or X amount per gig of bandwidth. If you multiply those charges for every feed that you have and add in the cost of CC processing, hosting, rev sharing, aren't you cutting your profit to nil or even a negative $ amount?

[CJ-KJCash]

What I can' understand is how a site can survive only from leased content alone. One of our most active board members has a site that has nearly every feed available. Each feed costs either X amount per member or X amount per gig of bandwidth. If you multiply those charges for every feed that you have and add in the cost of CC processing, hosting, rev sharing, aren't you cutting your profit to nil or even a negative $ amount?

I would think hosting fees would be negligible. I mean if you are serving no content other than your tour, how much bandwith could you burn?

[Xstr8guy]

I would think hosting fees would be negligible. I mean if you are serving no content other than your tour, how much bandwith could you burn?

Oh yeah... what was I thinking? Lol.

[dannyz]

I would think hosting fees would be negligible. I mean if you are serving no content other than your tour, how much bandwith could you burn?

I *think* Xstr8guy is referring to the feed bandwidth bill, like with AEBN...I imagine it would get pretty expensive if the only thing you had to offer was AEBN feeds and getting billed at their rates from the bandwidth.

[Bec]

Hmm, yet another calculation to consider for what it'd cost to use them. I'd glossed over the additional BW costs above and beyond what the monthly fee would be.

[Xstr8guy]

I *think* Xstr8guy is referring to the feed bandwidth bill, like with AEBN...I imagine it would get pretty expensive if the only thing you had to offer was AEBN feeds and getting billed at their rates from the bandwidth.

Actually, I meant bandwidth to be in addition to the cost of the leased feeds. But you did remind me of a subtopic involving feeds.

Is it more cost effective for a paysite owner to use feeds that charge by bandwidth useage or per member charges?

[gaystoryman]

Frankly I think per member would be more cost effective as some of those guys can sure burn the bandwidth. THough I have to admit, I am not knowledgable about feeds and plugin, I got enough headaches trying to update a bloody newsletter or something.. :honest:

[dannyz]

Is it more cost effective for a paysite owner to use feeds that charge by bandwidth useage or per member charges?

I think feeds that charge by bandwidth are more fair then charging per member. I know that many of our members don't even look at the feeds since we give them so much other content, so for us paying per member would not be a good deal.

[JOELK]

Actually, I meant bandwidth to be in addition to the cost of the leased feeds. But you did remind me of a subtopic involving feeds.

Is it more cost effective for a paysite owner to use feeds that charge by bandwidth useage or per member charges?

I would say that it depends on how many members you have. For people just starting a site with little to no members it would probably be more cost effecient to pay for the bandwidth you use(per gig). For larger programs i would say that being charged by the member would be better because with high quality, updated feeds you will never have to pay the $2 a gig your members use.