WebWhoreBucks Blog

Blocked Countries

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:55:00 +0000

For a long time I've allowed affiliates living in blocked countries to sign up to promote our sites, but I've just switched it back to the default. I just don't have time to police those people and they DO have a way higher incidence of sending fraudulent transactions. Fortunately it was CCBill who caught it this time, but yeah. I don't have time to watch that shit like a hawk.

When the Icon's Ass Has Already been Worshipped

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:09:00 +0000

What do I do when I do not want to follow suit by performing a rim job on one of the industry's Holy Men, but probably should? I *disagree*! Just to be contrary!! Because I like shooting myself in the foot like that!!!

Note to newbs: yes, you probably *should* kiss YNOT Bob's ass. Because it's, like, holy and stuff. If I had half a brain I would, too. Still? It cracks me up when girls deny that they have their noses buried between his butt cheeks. Moi? Kiss ass? Never!! It's especially cute to me since I see the same girl kissing SOME man's ass EVERY time I visit that board (which is rare, but perhaps makes it all the more noticeable that I see this EVERY TIME. Seriously though, every thread you go into with B O B posting, there are girls falling all over themselves to give him a virtual rim job. Enough already!!! Or just admit it; YES! I am kissing ass because it's the smart thing to do and/or there's NOTHING smarter than a girl acting stupid(er than a guy).

If you can't beat them, write snarky blog entries about them.

It's hard for me to describe why this trend chafes at me, but it has less to do with the specific instances where it occurs, and more to do with the overall tendency of webwhores to not engage in real discussions with Men Who are Assigned Respect in this industry, and instead to just try to get them to notice them by slobbering all over them and hoping somehow they'll get favors and traffic for exhibiting exaggerated deference to them. In theory I don't even disagree with this method and yeah, some of the guys *are* grand repositories of money, traffic and porno wisdom. But sometimes it just strikes me as grotesque, especially since there's such an obvious difference between the way the boys aspire to be ON the big mucky-mucks' levels and are more likely to engage in real dialogue with them, while the girls almost always do the bowing and scraping and submissive stupid-act. Teach me more, oh wise one! Thou FILLETH me with big lessons I am scarcely able to contain! I am content merely to kneel before you, a naked acolyte rubbing my nipples upon your knees.

Someday I'll give you a link to the thread in which I insulted Steve Lightspeed and explain why. But not today.

My Bitch of the Day

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:50:00 +0000

Grrrr . . . this drives me BATSHIT:

Sponsors who suspend webmasters for inactivity.

Brazzers

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:11:00 +0000

After my bitching in my last post, I feel the need to say something positive about a big sponsor, so here we go:

I FUCKING LOVE JUGGCASH.

I *love* Brazzers content. The roleplays are hot/funny and the production value is great. Their stuff is exactly what I think great mainstream porn should be. When I complain about corporate programs that fritter good money away, I'm not talking about these people. I love what they do with their resources (judging from the content I've seen). I absolutely adore it.

I don't follow the boards closely enough to know if there's any drama attached to them, nor do I make my living as an affiliate so I guess my opinion is very surfer-like, but hey -- the surfer opinion is the most important one as far as I'm concerned.

A Bitter Sigh of Relief?

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 03:27:00 +0000

I constantly stress out about slacking over releasing new promo content, especially hosted galleries, for affiliates. I always think that the big corporate sites have so much more to offer (and indeed they do, in many ways).

But now that I've been collecting sponsor galleries to use on my tgp area on Trixie.com I no longer feel quite so bad. Just a little bewildered. So many programs with so many sites I've heard make so many people so much money that are talked up so much on boards? Many of them haven't released new galleries in three months, six months, YEARS even. What the fuck? And it also seems like it's often the best sites, the sites that are supposedly our competition (solo girl sites) or the ones that have really great concepts (if only the gallery builders wouldn't write such fucking retarded sales text) that are stagnant or have grown cold.

I'm not saying that I want to be like those sites or that I think it's fine or serves me well to not release more promo stuff (if I had two of me, I'd totally be getting it done at least on a weekly basis), it just amazes me how much we do with TWO PEOPLE. Me and my partner. And we're IN all the content and SHOOT it all ourselves. Contrasting that with these big programs with money to throw around skinning GFY and shit and it just frustrates me. If we had one tenth of those people's resources to hire just one helper and sink the rest into better equipment, locations, costumes and a third talent wheel every so often? Oh my god. We would fucking ROCK. I'm not saying this as someone just months out of the gate in this business -- I've been in it since 2000, and seriously since 2002 so I *know* what we could do with just an extra $25k to $50k a year. Toilet paper money for some of these programs.

SIGH.

It really kills me that there are so many dead sites out there, not updating or rotating old content, and they get so much play. They even get good reviews on review sites. It boggles my mind that sites with no interaction, only about 15% of the content we have, and no real updates for months manage to get scores close to ours when we do live shows every week, have 24/7 spycams, REAL blogs, etc. I honestly think that maybe we offer TOO much and it reaches a ceiling beyond which people cannot even measure or grasp what it is we do. Maybe they think we're lying about doing all that stuff, since most sites promising interaction don't really have anything except maybe some cam upsells with Eastern European girls in fishtanks.

It's so easy to believe the hype on the boards about the big programs and thinking they have superior products. In some cases they do (Raven Riley's site comes to mind), but in most cases? I just don't see it.

I have got. To get. Me some. OF THAT MONEY.

Do I have the most unprofessional sponsor blog in the industry? Inquiring minds want to know.

The Usual Argument (but Smarter)

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 21:24:00 +0000

I came across this interesting thread on Gay Wide Webmasters. The "too much free porn is ruining sales!" argument is an old one, of course, but usually when you see it brought up on most adult webmaster boards it winds up that whoever suggested the possibility there's some truth to that is verbally lynched by the angry straight webmaster mob.

I like GWW because the people who can present coherent arguments actually outnumber the idiots. In fact, it's very rare you see complete troll-like morons on GWW. Actually, I don't think I've seen ANY trolls there. A couple dummies every so often, but no bonafide trolls. The ethics of the webmasters on GWW also seem to exceed those of the average straight webmaster you see spouting off on GFY, etc., and they all tend to be much more conservative when it comes to what porn "webmasters" should be able to get away with. It's truly refreshing, except for the part where you have to sacrifice an infant every three months to stay active on the board. Okay, I'm joking about that, but it IS kind of annoying how they have post requirements to keep your account from being locked down on that board.

Broken Link

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 00:47:00 +0000

My apologies to all, but I broke the "enter" link on Delia's clean tour entry page a few weeks ago when I "improved" it. I am so sorry, but wanted to let you all know in case you noticed a decrease in conversions recently. It was my fault, but I fixed it today. Thank you to A. for discovering it and taking the time to write to us so we could fix it. All should be well now! By the way, his blog is a good example of how to write entries designed to convert so check it out for inspiration.

One of the challenging things about running our own sites and affiliate program is exactly this: we are doing so many things that it's very easy to overlook little problems. Many times I begin a task only to be distracted by another, and when that happens? Sometimes proofreading or double-checking links can get shoved to the wayside. While I do look forward to the days when we can hire people to proofread, build galleries, etc., I know that mistakes are still bound to happen so I'll try not to be too hard on myself. ;)

Mother's Day

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Fri, 18 May 2007 00:05:00 +0000

Definitely a bad day for sales, but I'm kind of glad.

FrogBucks Croaked!

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 22:50:00 +0000

Just read this on GFY: Frogbucks is Gone? WTF happened?

Too bad; I really liked one of their sites. As usual I can't help but feel a bit smug.

Posting Requirements

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 21:51:00 +0000

While I understand boards that require a minimum number of posts BEFORE you can post URLs, IT REALLY DRIVES ME FUCKING APESHIT.

If someone makes a "spam me with . . . " request and I invest 30 minutes registering, making a suitably-sized avatar, filling out my profile, and entering a modestly-sized signature it just pisses me the fuck off when they want me to also go making a bunch of fake-o posts so that I can have the fucking HONOR of responding to someone's request.

Whatever.

To Live is to Fly

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:15:00 +0000

I ran across this factoid in this year's green issue of Vanity Fair in an article on falconry written by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:

Eighty percent of raptors die during their first year trying to master the art of killing game. Those that survive possess an extraordinary ability to learn from experience.

For some birds and some businesses, you just don't eat if you don't take risks and high-speed suicide plunges. Fly fast and probably die . . . or don't eat and die for sure.

I'm not saying that I respect everybody who has managed to make it past a year in this industry, nor am I saying that crazy-ass high-risk stunts are necessary to succeed in internet porn, nor am I saying that those of us who survive possess raptor-like skill and awe-inspiring talent. Instead I'm comforted by the thought of being part of that 20% not because I'm so full of wild daring, skill, or smarts but because of luck, tenacity, and choosing to commit. And because it's something I was born to do, and if I were to lose everything doing it that wouldn't be a personal failure, it would simply be the probable cost of learning to fly.

Flash Bullshit

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 18:35:00 +0000

Jesus -- I don't know how many programs I've clicked on and closed a second later because they had some stupid flash bullshit loading. I want to see a sponsor's list of sites IMMEDIATELY (or usually one click away from a fast-loading home page).

Is ANYONE impressed by these elaborate time-wasting flash intros? Does ANYONE say to themselves, "oh wow -- their sites are going to convert really well for me judging from this exquisite flash presentation!"

I guess I am just one of those old fogeys who goes to websites with clear notions of what I want to find, and that's usually INFORMATION and FAST. I don't like being bombarded with bullshit or diverted with slow downloads I didn't ask for because someone thinks it's impressive or "entertaining".

GFY: a Dangerous Website

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 22:34:00 +0000

I'm at my mom's house for Easter and have sequestered myself in the guest room to do some "work". Upon trying to visit GFY I got a WARNING in red letters from PC-cillin:

You have attempted to open a dangerous Web site.
Credibility: Dangerous
Category: Adware / Joke Program
Suggestion: Close your web browser window and do not reopen this web site.

Oooh, I'm totally infecting my mom's computer with dangerous GFY web-germs!

Tightening Down the Hatch

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 03:16:00 +0000

Over the past nine months we've enjoyed a lot of growth thanks to having more affiliates. As always, I look forward to adding more tools and promotional content to help make all of us more sales.

On the other hand, with more affiliates and more enthusiasm for our sites, I've noticed a lot more widespread use of affiliate tactics that are at best ineffective, and at worst, totally counterproductive to making sales. Many of these tactics are in violation of our terms/rules (sometimes due to poor judgement calls or emulation of affiliate practices that a lot of people think are totally kosher).

Anyway, I feel like I need to clarify some of our guidelines and expectations more so I'll be adding more prominent links to the rules we already have along with clarification on the content pages for zips, FHGs, etc.

Christmas Cards from Sponsors

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 23:50:00 +0000

I like getting Christmas cards from sponsors, and wish we could send out cards too but because our affiliate program is administered by ccbill we rarely get our affiliates' addresses. For now it's a nice excuse not to spend the time and money on those simple tokens of appreciation (which can't be replaced by a bulk email), but in the future I hope we can find a way to work around that (without switching to NATS).

Are Affiliates Overpaid?

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 05:48:00 +0000

I *wish* I had time to read this entire thread tonight:

Corbin Fisher asks the controversial question: are affiliates overpaid?

When you read threads like this one, you've got to say that at least SOME affiliates are definitely overpaid, or at least are asking to get paid to do NOTHING. Of course, the question then becomes, "is it worth it to overpay people like this fellow?"

And you know . . . for some of those fellows -- if they have good traffic that converts -- the answer is YES, it is worth it. Sometimes, at least.

*****

Honestly, I do not begrudge our affiliates the 50-60% we pay them and in some ways in the case of some people imagine it is unfair to them / they are underpaid (example: affiliate sends a customer who buys a non-recurring membership -- when he rejoins after that membership expires, our affiliate doesn't get paid at all unless the customer goes back to the affiliate's site and clicks through to ours again). On the other hand, I think people need to realize that sponsors don't get the whole 50% in a supposed 50/50 split. In our case we also eat the ccbill fee, which leaves us with only 35% (or 25% in the case of the affiliates we give 60% to). And obviously there are all of those other expenses and work that Corbin mentioned in the initial thread, but I don't know if taking those into consideration makes for a very good argument. A fun argument, for sure, but one that's not really win-able.

At the end of the day you just have to figure out whether or not it's worth it to provide competitive rewards to the people who promote you. You have to put aside whether or not everything's perfectly fair and equitable and decide if it's WORTH IT. From my perspective, the answer is HELL YES it's worth it.

Promises I Can't Keep

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 05:11:00 +0000

I ran across a promotional profile of me that one of our affiliates put up that I have a couple of problems with. One of the problems is that they link to ALL of my free galleries from the profile, rather than providing a representative sample. Kind of like this person does with his "fansite" that lists every single promo gallery the sponsor provides for one girl's newish site, 37 picture galleries and over ten movie galleries. At least one girls' profile on this affiliates' site links to OVER NINETY OF HER GALLERIES. All from one place, her profile, making it a minisite in itself and more of an alternative to joining her site, rather than a motivating factor. Needless to say, this person has sent my galleries tons of traffic . . . and NONE of it has converted.

The other problem is the text they wrote to lure people to my site:

Trixie is a true voyeur as this thirty something year old strumpet fucks, masturbates and sucks her way thru her days. She's also open to alot of suggestions so once you join up be sure to give her some directions!

Sigh.

Nowhere on my site or my tours do I lead surfers to believe that I fuck, suck and stroke myself all day. It would be a bad promise to make since I have spycams and they will find out soon enough that I spend most of my day IN FRONT OF MY COMPUTER. Hands on keyboard. Or shoving ding dongs into my face whilst watching Project Runway.

Even more misleading, I do not invite people to boss me around. In fact, if someone comes into the chatroom and tries to "give me some direction", chances are I will boot his bossy ass right out (unless of course he's paying by the minute for a private show which is a totally different thing than buying a site membership). When people make promises I can't keep or encourage surfers to do things that will lead to me reaming their asses out, there's a potential for chargebacks. We don't like chargebacks.

I think there's a real misconception amongst both surfers and affiliates alike that genuine amateurs running personality sites are all about taking requests from and fucking their members. I didn't build my own site to have other people tell me what to do. I built my own site partly because I already KNOW what I want to do and I don't WANT to have one boss, let alone thousands of them. My site offers a whole hell of a lot, but a 24/7 sex show inviting members to tell me what to do and how to do it is NOT on the menu. Yes, I do fuck, suck and masturbate on cam regularly, but I'm not putting on a dog and pony show all day and night. Give the surfers realistic expectations that are easy to EXCEED, not promises we just can't keep.

While it's true that one of the main draws of self-run personality-driven sites is interactivity, there are more ways to have interaction than having bossy people thinking they can tell a girl what to do because he paid $20 for a month of access to her site. That's not a realistic business model, it's not how I market myself, and it's not how other people should market me.

I honestly think this affiliate has built a nice-looking site and I really don't think s/he had any intention of writing promo text that could be construed as deceptive, but he or she is shooting him/herself in the foot and putting us at risk for chargebacks. Some of the other text they wrote was quite sweet and did indicate they took the time to check out my site quite a bit, I think they're just a bit misguided. I hate to use them as an example, but it was a good opportunity for me to write this up to let other people know to avoid these kinds of mistakes. I really do not want surfers to be disappointed because I don't want to go into my chatroom and hear them barking orders at us. Though the wording of the text was nice (not anything like, "tell this fuckslut which hole to stretch for you on cam!"), I've spent years on cam and I know the perception surfers have . . . there are some boundaries you have to keep very clear, one of them being how far you will go to "satisfy" your customers. Fielding requests from thousands of people is farther than we can go.

Give Feedback to CCBill

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 22:51:00 +0000

Corvette is asking for suggestions on GFY for the new CCBill Affiliate System, so put in your two cents.

I can never seem to remember what improvements I want on things like that unless I'm in the midst of bitching about something affecting me right at that moment.

Spyware, Etc.

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 03:49:00 +0000

Looks like I need to add a line to our terms and rules to specify that we don't tolerate affiliates "promoting" our sites via spyware/adware. Sounds like a lot of sponsors are coming out on the boards to make sure people know that's not kosher; I don't know the whole story behind the drive to verbally protest the use of malware lately -- does it have something to do with all the "AFF-tolerates-malware" drama/accusations that I've not kept up on? Hmmm. . . anyway, it seems like another of those things that should go without saying. We definitely don't want our names associated with shit like that -- I don't even like pop-ups, let alone malicious warez.

Contradiction in Terms?

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 18:00:00 +0000

I raised my eyebrow a notch when I read this request on GFY this morning:

Spam me with solo girl sites that are NOT part of a large sponsor. Sites that can provide content for galleries and provide custom FHGs.

What, you may ask, do I find "funny" about the request? It would mostly be the "not part of a large sponsor" combined with "can provide custom FHGs". How does a small program manage to run the site(s) AND sit around creating custom galleries for an affiliate? Either they never sleep, or they are incredibly talented, or they're making a lot more money than we are and can hire someone to make special promo content for affiliates. I don't even do custom galleries for my MEMBERS.

I also wonder what "large" sponsor means. What constitutes a "large" sponsor versus a small or medium sponsor? Obviously some people are interpreting him as requesting "sponsors with sites that are not overexposed", but it seems to me if you have three to ten solo girl sites in your portfolio (and none of those girls ARE the sponsor doing the work of running the actual program, but are just bought content or paid models), you are a "large" sponsor unless you consider yourself small in terms of profit and exposure, in which case you'd think the average GFY sponsor type wouldn't want to post in that thread since all it seems to mean is that you must not be very successful to have all those sites and still be "small" or at least NOT large. Of course I'm nitpicking now, though, since accuracy is not what's important . . . spam is.

Oh well, I posted in the thread but I'm sure it will be ignored and/or look like I'm a bitter poor little asshole who doesn't have a deep enough commitment to her affiliates to whip out custom galleries for a potential affiliate.

A First

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Mon, 04 Sep 2006 02:59:00 +0000

This week we're experiencing a big FIRST. Before I tell you what it is, let me explain the basics of who does the work on our sites:

TUCKER AND I.

Long story short: for the past six years I/we have been doing almost everything ourselves. I've bought a couple of scripts, software, equipment, costumes. NakedHosting takes care of all of our hosting needs and the technical side of that. But really, I have only paid for THINGS, never hiring actual PEOPLE to do specific jobs. Sure, we pay affiliates, but only when they make sales; it's not the same as HIRING someone. And yeah, we've gotten incredible free help from friends and colleagues, but again . . . not the same as paying for help. I started out doing everything alone and in the past six years have only added one person (Tucker) to the "staff".

This week that changes! This week we are paying a videographer / video editor to shoot us, edit the footage, encode it, etc. It will be the first time we've really paid someone to do work for our sites. I cannot describe how intensely excited I am!

The bulk of our content is solo stuff since Tucker and I shoot each other; doing couples stuff is really hard when you're shooting it yourself, and I think not as fun when you're worrying about being a photographer AND a fucker. Plus I really really really find video editing monotonous, and can't afford the time or money to get the right tools and learn to use them. As a result, I feel like a lot of our video content is sub-par. But I'm *dying* to offer members more hardcore stuff (note: by "hardcore" I do not mean "extreme" as in setting each other on fire while fucking telephone poles, etc.); plus I just really love watching Tucker (or Delia) and I doing it. I love almost all of the content we do have featuring us together, and I know it will only be a million times better with Ron shooting the video, offering insights and suggestions and direction, and editing it.

So. This is going to be a landmark week for us. Hiring someone to shoot content probably doesn't measure on most porn companies' "landmark dates" register (for most of them it's a REQUIREMENT, not an option), but for indies like us? Whoah! It's a BIG DEAL!

Oops. I just remembered that I paid a friend to build a computer for me back in 2002 and do some follow-up work after that, so this is actually not a first. But it feels like it!!!

I look forward to working with Ron a lot, milking his brain and talents, and moving towards contracting out more of our work in the future. Though I tended to be one of those people who hated group work in school (and I still love working on projects by myself), I have come to appreciate working in teams. With the right people working together the process and end results are better than anything you could imagine doing alone. Ron is definitely "the right people".

Honestly we can't truly afford him right now, but thanks to one of my long-time members' sweet donations, I have just enough of a cushion to earmark some money for Ron so that he knows we value his work and are serious about budgeting him in for more. He is worth way more than we'll be paying him this week, that's for sure.

Guess this means I will have to hurry up and make a nice leak-free clean tour for affiliates to promote SpyOnUs.com! Now . . . if I could just find the money to pay someone to do THAT job . . . someday!

Promo Blog & RSS Feed Next

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 06:03:00 +0000

So. I guess the next ad tool I should offer is a leak-free blog and RSS feed. As usual, Toby is the one to guide me and patiently answer each of my questions. In order to properly thank him I believe I must place this at the top of my list of sponsor-priority-projects.

Of course, my entries will probably still stick out like a sore thumb amongst other sponsor-written blog entries. Oh dear, I won't be able to refer to pooping. There go half of my archives!

Camz Drama

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 21:24:00 +0000

Here's some drama that I don't think is posted on GFY yet: IMPORTANT: Housecamz Public Notice! - AmateurMasters.com

Affiliates who give TOO MUCH away

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 05:10:00 +0000

Jesus H -- this guy's free site is so not kosher: please comment on my latest site/project...

The sad part is he doesn't even seem to realize he's shooting himself in the foot and honestly thinks he's doing a really great "tribute" site. Hehehe.

Out of Town

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 06:25:00 +0000

We're taking our first trip to New York City on Wednesday to be in Audacia Ray's super-cool porno so you probably won't be able to get in touch with me until after August 3rd.

Hoping to get in some flashing pics in Central Park . . . wish us luck!