Open Thread

[Dzinerbear]

Max,

I wish you could look at this from the other side. Let me help you with that.

I have run both a TGP and a link list. I have become pretty disillusioned with both very quickly. So much so that two months ago I just stopped accepting submissions to my TGP.

You need to understand that traffic hubs receive hundreds and thousands of submissions of absolute garbage. There are webmasters who take the same free content from the $30 PPS sponsor of the moment, and they submit them over and over again. Once they've submitted all 20 sets, they start submitting them again. If I see that bald guy fucking one more twink for cash I'm going to hurl my computer out of my window.

Then you have the webmasters who take a FHG, slap three buttons at the top, and submit those to list after list. You've got webmasters calling skinny guys with twenty hairs on their chest bears. You've got webmasters submitting galleries with Randy Blue content and promoting Corbin Fisher. On and on it goes, and that's without getting into the gallery switching, redirecting, pop-ups, and other scams.

As a link list owner I think, "Gee, I want to provide surfers with something to look at, but do I want to just throw a bad product in front of them. Won't they get tired of The Pig? Will they keep coming back?" I wouldn't.

I appreciate the webmasters who have submitted galleries to The Pig and helped me build my site. But this has to be a partnership. If you the webmaster aren't providing a quality product, if you're not putting any thought or creativity into the product you create and want me to list, then the surfers are going to leave The Pig. The surfers will not be able to rely on The Pig as some place that gives them good quality free galleries. If I can't provide you with traffic, then you'll say, "Oh gee, that link list sucks, they send no traffic."

Now, you might say that The Pig ain't no JUB, and you'd be right. I don't send anyone heaps of traffic. I'm still growing my site. But I can certainly understand how JUB must be feeling. And it must be 1,000 times more frustrating for them because they have 1,000 times the traffic that I do.

I work hard. I work long hours every day writing heaps of content in the form of site reviews, video reviews, free galleries, blogs. All of this to attract search engine traffic so I have traffic to send to my gallery submitters, and of course, I'm hoping that some of the traffic will buy what I'm selling. But I'm not going to let that traffic be sucked off and killed by bunch of really bad galleries. I'm trying to create a place that surfers want to come to regularly.

Max, you often look at these situations as what's in it for me, what am I getting. My question is: What are you doing to help build traffic to Just Us Boys so they have traffic to send to the other webmasters submitting galleries? Or what are you doing to send traffic to JUB that buys something that helps pay their employee wages, rent, or server costs? If everyone is taking from JUB and no one is giving back, then JUB ain't going to be around for long. The surfers will simply become bored with all of the crap and move on to the next BIG thing.

I have to say that I think Just Us Boys are on the right track. In fact, they beat me to the punch -- bastards! they always do that. I'm working on a new product and I'll have an announcement of my own within the next week or so. But it's pretty close to this philosophy. And I think you'll be finding a lot of traffic hubs start moving in different directions.

Finally Max, you couldn't be more wrong in your assessment of the JUB guys. You paint them as these big, green, money-grabbing monsters, but they've never been anything but fair and generous to me. I met Bryce at the Phoenix Forum for the first time and he gave me some much appreciated, unsolicited advice that put loads of money in my pocket. (And it's at the core of my upcoming announcement, which I believe will make my sites even more successsful.) He didn't ask for anything. He just gave. A few weeks later, I e-mailed him and said, "I like how you think, can you send me a list of books that you've read." Within hours he sent me a nice e-mail with a list of books. Shannon has been no less helpful and supportive. And, of course, Andy is one of my best friends in the business.

The JUB guys are good people. I think you would find that if you started to think "how can I help them" that you would find innumerable rewards coming your way. It's the law of attraction -- like attracts like.

Cheers,
Michael

[JustBryce]

and all the BS about looking out for viewers, is just that BS I invite anyone to take a look at the “new” sites they are listing. They are for the most part below or possibly average feeders, with 30-60 pics made with templates or created with 5 minuets of effort.

Max, you are just being dumb now. The date for the change is (at the earliest March 1). Today is February 21. The sites you have harped on in several posts are in the old guidelines... the ones that we are getting rid of.

Finally, our busienss model is not to create sites to put in the directory. SEVERAL weeks ago, we added some simple templated sites into the directory as a test. The test was to see how much traffic the directory was sending out. How many hits came from the links list, from the new list, from the category. Those sites are also going to get cut because they served their purpose and gave us the data we need to actually move forward with this decision.

I haven't pretended to be a directory for a long time Max. The directory was called linkmeallover.ca and that was created by someone else. We bought the directory linkmeallover.ca and within a week added our forums. We then quickly changed the name. The forums, homepage, eye candy, and reviews all have far more traffic than the directory. But, there is still a need for a good quality directory and there is still enough traffic churning through the pages of JUB to provide very good traffic through that directory to our webmaster friends.

The real reason you have gotten pissed the last couple of days is because we have started rejecting your latest submissions. I have the reason that was sent to you right here. It's not even about new rules. Nine-Tenths of why you are being rejected is because of the use of "teen", "teen boys", and "school boys". We stated our position on that quite clearly and publicly on these boards.. what was it last week?

Max, tell me any place on this board or any other board you have ever heard be say something negative about anyone or anything. Tell me one place where anyone that works for us that has cut anyone down or burned a bridge. You can work with us or against us. We believe that we have to lie down in the bed we make every day. Do you really think your new affiliate program is going to be successful after you have spent years pissing people off everytime you start typing? I'd start examining your own hobby model before you crucify everyone else's business model.

Thanks to everyone else here who gets what is going on. As always we appreciate your kind and honest words.

[JustBryce]

Tell me one place where anyone that works for us that has cut anyone down or burned a bridg

My bad... I guess I just did. Sorry.

[maxpower]

My bad... I guess I just did. Sorry.

Don’t worry about it man, I am kind of over it now. I will drop it, but its not like I am really attacking you. I did not even name the tread JUB anything it will disappear basically in a day or so. And its not like I go around hitting all the boards to talk crap about you :pirate:

Even though I am a member site owner now in my hart I am still an affiliate. I understand how hard many of these people work and that is something I think some people do not like to think about. Can you image what its like to spend countless hours perfecting this or that about your sites to have your efforts compared to SPAM or something. :snake:

As far as the word boy or teen in some of my sites, well I do make Twink Boy, and Teen Boy sites so its hard and bad for sales to call them MEN or something. But I do not use those words or call virtually all my sites the same things. This really has nothing to do with the text I might use, the 100 Free images I offer viewers in every site, or rotating and creating different graphics for the sites.

I guess it was all the effort I went though to get sites accepted, to have them removed a week later because you changed you mind did piss me off. And to say it was about the quality of the sites Really Pissed me off. I can say easily that I create some of the best free gay site around, they are 2 times as big as you once you are “testing” and I spend more time on each and every one of them than most webmasters.

I can play the text game to a point, and would work with you on any reasonable request, but my efforts to even fix yet again what you think was wrong now with the sites were meet with (don’t bother just send us your hub and fuck off)

If you or other webmasters can not see a problem with all of this stuff then I do not know how to explain things better than I did already.

[maxpower]

I have to say that I think Just Us Boys are on the right track. In fact, they beat me to the punch -- bastards! they always do that. I'm working on a new product and I'll have an announcement of my own within the next week or so. But it's pretty close to this philosophy. And I think you'll be finding a lot of traffic hubs start moving in different directions.

Then I am glad I did not waste my time sending you any sites, if you think as soon as you can afford to replace them with your own sites then why should ANYONE help you?

Your attitude of helping put thousands of hard working people out of work is not one I think belongs in this community. If you don’t want to work with affiliates and other webmasters submitting sites, or just do it until you can turn around and blow them off then your view on all this should be well known :wtf:

[CorbinFisher_BD]

Sorry but these are the ONLY 3 gay companies I have a problem with, can you see a pattern?

Yes, the pattern is that they have made sound business decisions that don't fit in to your rosey picture of what serves your own personal interests.

Not to pull rank our sound mean but you attempting to give people like JUB and UGAS advice on how to run their businesses is pretty hilarious.

Other businesses aren't charities, and if you think JUB should treat ya like a charity then at least let them claim ya on their taxes.

Oh, and the affiliate changes are going great, btw! Net and gross revenues are up and our remaining top affiliates are quite pleased with it as well! Thanks for asking! How's getting screwed over by everyone going?

[themonk]

is it like whore tread :?

[maxpower]

Yes, the pattern is that they have made sound business decisions that don't fit in to your rosey picture of what serves your own personal interests.

Not to pull rank our sound mean but you attempting to give people like JUB and UGAS advice on how to run their businesses is pretty hilarious.

Other businesses aren't charities, and if you think JUB should treat ya like a charity then at least let them claim ya on their taxes.

Oh, and the affiliate changes are going great, btw! Net and gross revenues are up and our remaining top affiliates are quite pleased with it as well! Thanks for asking! How's getting screwed over by everyone going?

NO like I said these companies have little or no respect for their affiliates or contributors this is my problem. Yet again I do see how something like this would seem stupid to you.

IF JUB, or you did not want the afflatus to help build your companies at the beginning, then I think you should have said so. I am sure we all could have work with other companies with some kind of ethics or at least would not have turned on us at the first chance they had.

The best thing for thousands of hard working webmasters, never come into your thinking at all. Other than the few people that work for you, the best thing would have been for all of us would have be that you never existed. If I ever become so careless about the people that helped me when I was starting out I hope someone would say something about it, and I also hope I would be rejected by the community as a whole.

[marcjacob]

JustBryce, can you be clearer about your definition of a quality site? Are we saying no sponsor content? limiting banners? minimum content? Im unclear about what you actually want in a site. Also are we saying it has to have its own domain name?

[XXXWriterDude]

NO like I said these companies have little or no respect for their affiliates or contributors this is my problem. Yet again I do see how something like this would seem stupid to you.

IF JUB, or you did not want the afflatus to help build your companies at the beginning, then I think you should have said so. I am sure we all could have work with other companies with some kind of ethics or at least would not have turned on us at the first chance they had.

The best thing for thousands of hard working webmasters, never come into your thinking at all. Other than the few people that work for you, the best thing would have been for all of us would have be that you never existed. If I ever become so careless about the people that helped me when I was starting out I hope someone would say something about it, and I also hope I would be rejected by the community as a whole.

Max, you stated earlier that you weren't attacking anyone, but clearly you are, and it all sounds like a bunch of sour grapes to me. It's obvious that you're feeling personally insulted by the fact that these successful companies--which you may have helped to become successful, true--are changing their business models to suit their current needs. But the plain fact of the matter is, that's just the nature of business. As companies get bigger, they change the game plans and the rules as it suits them best. If you were an affiliate of theirs and you were helping to send them traffic, then you got paid accordingly for your efforts, so it wasn't like they were taking advantage of you any more than you were of them.

Still, business models change, and the FACT is that there is rarely a personal motivating factor involved in those decisions. On the outside, it may look to the webmasters who helped JUB that JUB is turning their back on them, but I seriously doubt that is actually the case. I have to add to the great things that have been said about the guys at JUB, as I cannot imagine coming across a more friendly, courteous, gracious and professional group of people in this business as the guys at JUB. I have had dinner with them and gone to shows with them a few times, and I have always enjoyed sharing their company. I don't know a whole lot about their business practices, true, because I haven't dealt with them on that level, but that's also why I'm a great person to share my thoughts here. I'm seeing this as an objective outsider with nothing to gain or lose from JUB, so I'm seeing it for what it really is, rather than what you are making it based on your own personal motives.

[JustJohn]

Max, just to wrap this up from our end... you are operating under a few misconceptions.

First, we do appreciate the people who have and continue to submit quality sites to our directory. I can't tell you how many of them have written back in response to our notice and said something along the lines of "its about time." The truth is, this is something we should have done a while ago but we've been focusing on other things. Everyone with a full fledged website will still be listed, and that includes hub sites that offer something of value. We're just getting out of the business of listing every 30 pic template site that comes along. If you really think about it, that business model hasn't changed in years and doesn't deliver nearly the results it used to.

Second, we aren't trying to crowd out submitters to make room for our own sites. You may not believe it, but we have never stacked the directory with our own sites... the Nasty Dollars sites you reference are from a submitter just like you. I suppose we could have made some money doing that but to be honest, there are much more efficient ways for us to get our own traffic to sponsors. Anyway, the proof will be in the pudding... when the new directory is up it will look much different.

Finally, we spend an awful lot of our own money getting traffic to our site. We want to make sure that our visitors have a pleasant experience and associate us with a quality experience so they keep coming back. The business keeps changing and surfers want more. That is absolutely the only reason for the change.

Best,
John

[basschick]

sean, please take a step back. none of this is personal at all and businesses must evolve to survive. also there is not a single link site or directory on the entire internet that is obligated to take any particular kind of site or any particular owner's site. these are private businesses and they can make whatever rules work for their sites.

what's more, if you would come to a webmaster lunch - and they are fairly local for you - you could meet andy mike, and maybe bryce. they're super nice guys and are always doing innovative stuff with JUB. each change may not work out well for you or for me, but they are trying to make something different.

there are TONS of link lists and directories. you can find more. personally i like the idea of a site that lists only high quality stuff - which is not to say i don't like regular lists, too.

here's a serious thought. why not start a twink site list of your own? you can post all your own stuff and other webmasters' stuff as well. all that text should bring some nice se hits and having linkbacks, no matter where on a site, will raise your pr.

[JustJohn]

JustBryce, can you be clearer about your definition of a quality site? Are we saying no sponsor content? limiting banners? minimum content? Im unclear about what you actually want in a site. Also are we saying it has to have its own domain name?

Hey Marc,

Yes, for the most part we're only going to list sites on their own domain name. We're getting out of the business of listing hundreds of subdirectories of template sites.

That said, if someone has a quality site on a subdomain, or a blog on the blogger domain, we definitely want to list it. Its not so much the unique domain we're after as what that usually represents... and that leads me to the rest of your question. When I think of a quality site, I think of a site that people will want to visit again and again, both because it has good content and because its updated frequently. For free site builders, that might mean that we list your main URL or hub site that links to all of your content. We no longer want to list the "one off" type sites that are meant to be built and forgotten about.

Hope that helps a bit.

John

[maxpower]

Max, you stated earlier that you weren't attacking anyone, but clearly you are, and it all sounds like a bunch of sour grapes to me. It's obvious that you're feeling personally insulted by the fact that these successful companies--which you may have helped to become successful, true--are changing their business models to suit their current needs. But the plain fact of the matter is, that's just the nature of business. As companies get bigger, they change the game plans and the rules as it suits them best. If you were an affiliate of theirs and you were helping to send them traffic, then you got paid accordingly for your efforts, so it wasn't like they were taking advantage of you any more than you were of them.

Still, business models change, and the FACT is that there is rarely a personal motivating factor involved in those decisions. On the outside, it may look to the webmasters who helped JUB that JUB is turning their back on them, but I seriously doubt that is actually the case. I have to add to the great things that have been said about the guys at JUB, as I cannot imagine coming across a more friendly, courteous, gracious and professional group of people in this business as the guys at JUB. I have had dinner with them and gone to shows with them a few times, and I have always enjoyed sharing their company. I don't know a whole lot about their business practices, true, because I haven't dealt with them on that level, but that's also why I'm a great person to share my thoughts here. I'm seeing this as an objective outsider with nothing to gain or lose from JUB, so I'm seeing it for what it really is, rather than what you are making it based on your own personal motives.

I am really over this, but for the most part the people that think this kind of crap is cool, really have nothing to do with these companies or being a affiliate at all. Their are a few member sites, and directories I see that have the same ethics saying so, but that’s it.

In fact some of you still think you can make sites that will comply with these “rules’ in fact the reason for the rules is to prevent you from sending any sites to them or to make sure its not worth the time.

And yes the attitudes of cutting off all out side traffic, and the lack of regard for others in the community does scare the hell out of me. These people in reality are selling us all down the river too keep their sites open a few extra years. We need to be real here even JUB will not be around in 10 years, but will affiliates still be around?

[JustJohn]

here's a serious thought. why not start a twink site list of your own? you can post all your own stuff and other webmasters' stuff as well. all that text should bring some nice se hits and having linkbacks, no matter where on a site, will raise your pr.

Such great advice. The only way to control your destiny is to control your own traffic. There is always room for a new, innovative site to shake things up... it happens everyday online.