WebWhoreBucks Blog

Blog Moving

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Sat, 01 May 2010 00:56:00 +0000

I have to move this blog due to Blogger no longer supporting FTP publishing.

I *think* I'm actually going to use WP as a CMS for WebWhoreBucks.com so once I do that, the new location for the blog will be easy to find from the front page and I'll leave these archives up here so none of the permalinks will break.

I'm pretty unhappy with the way blogger/google is fucking us with this - I've been blogging via blogger since 2001 and now we have this deadline where we have to migrate all of our blogs to a very limiting format or do what I'm doing, which is restarting many of my blogger blogs at new addresses using wordpress and leaving up the blogger archives so everything doesn't get fuxored. The problem with that, of course, is everyone's bookmarks will be wrong and I have to hurry and POST about these new locations. Since I don't have time to design and rebuild all of them in a smart way I can commit to, I'm forced to make stupid posts like this one that don't even have a link to the new blog. But I'm pretty sure the new one will be at webwhorebucks.com when I get the whole thing redesigned!

CCBill's WMS Apology

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:42:00 +0000

Last year we signed up to use CCBill's new WMS hoping it would make administering our affiliate program easier for us and more feature-rich for you. Unfortunately it didn't work out the way we hoped it would.

The good news is EVERYTHING IS BACK TO NORMAL for our "legacy" affiliates according to ccbill in this apology AND new affiliates can signup like normal once again.

*****

While there are some positive aspects of the new WMS I am going to wait awhile before I invest any of my time in working with it, so if you signed up for WebWhoreBucks under the WMS (during the very brief amount of time between it forcing people to sign up that way and before I took down the signup form) please sign up again for a legacy account.

Of course I could write a litany of detailed complaints at this point, but it doesn't seem like it would be productive so I'm just trying to get back to business as usual and emphasize that I *do* trust things are fixed and back to the way they were pre-WMS and hope all of you are too.

To Stop Getting Affiliate Emails

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 07:01:00 +0000

We send emails containing promos and news to all of our affiliates via the CCBill admin. We do it that way so that your affiliate codes will be built into the links to save you time from having to login, look it up, then change the links yourself.

CCBill allows us to email all active affiliates or no active affiliates; there's no "email all active affiliates who've opted into email". Since CCBill doesn't provide an unsubscribe option or a way for you to continue getting paid to promote us WITHOUT getting emails sent through their admin, the only way *I* can stop you from getting the emails we send to affiliates is to make you an affiliate no more/deactivate you.

If that's what you want, write to me from the email address you receive news from us and confirm that you want your account deactivated in order to stop getting email from us.

The only other thing I can think of is for you to call ccbill or change your email account in the affiliate admin (I cannot change your email address or any other personal details for your account myself in the ccbill admin).

New Blog Promo Tool

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:43:00 +0000

We created a new blog to promote and categorize our network-wide members-only updates:

Trixie and Friends

TrixieAndFriends is NOT a new paysite, it's 1) an advertising tool providing free previews and descriptions of our updates and 2) a tool for our members.

You, as an affiliate, can use this a couple of different ways:

*send traffic directly to it using your link code. When your surfers join one of our sites by clicking the links there, you'll get credit for the sales.

*snag pictures and descriptions from it to create your own blog entries (you can also snag pictures and quotes from our individual blogs).

Two words of disclosure and warning:

1) there are traffic leaks on TrixieAndFriends to our twitter feeds and personal blogs which often have outside links to sites and stuff you'll not get credit for.

2) DO NOT create duplicate blogs or sites where you pretend to be us. Do not register domains or subdomains mimicking our domain names or misspellings of them, and/or do not create blogs that only provide content featuring us and dump all of our promos there. WE ARE NOT INTERESTED IN PAYING PEOPLE TO MAKE SHODDY DUPLICATES OF OUR BLOGS. Shoddy duplicates of some of our blog entries, however, on blogs where you build your own traffic rather than diverting ours, are fine!

Eventually we plan to have all of our content indexed there and searchable for our members, but in the meantime it's still a great tool for us (and possibly for you) to let people know our newest updates on all of our sites, not just one of them. These posts aren't automated, they're hand-written by us and don't appear IMMEDIATELY upon posting the updates for members. We often post our updates late at night and will try to update TrixieAndFriends the next morning.

Halloween FHG's and Zips

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 05:20:00 +0000

There are new HALLOWEEN hosted galleries and zips for DeliaTS, AmberLily and TastyTrixie HERE.

Even if Halloween passes you by, our sites are very dress-up oriented and appeal to the kinds of people who like Halloween all year 'round so feel free to use them at any time or build your own galleries out of the zips that are less Halloween-specific.

More Later . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:22:00 +0000

Quickly: it doesn't seem like the bonus I tried to give is working (apparently I'd have had to set up a GROUP, then assign everyone to that group, and add each new affiliate to the group, then change the group settings after the promo ended, etc.) SO instead I'll administer something myself. Manually. For those who want to participate and who can accept money orders. I think it will be retroactive for all sales to DeliaTS.com starting on the third of October, through the end of the month.

More details later . . . Monday I am going to spend the day in tax filing hell, focusing solely on that.

UPDATE 10/27:

Here's the modest bonus plan - I know it's too little to be considered an incentive (like the giant $150 per join bonuses some programs are able to offer), but it's actually just meant as an apology for those of you who might have sent traffic to those DeliaTS galleries during those few days where the links were wrong:

1-9 joins to DeliaTS.com: bonus of $3 each
10-15 joins to DeliaTS.com: bonus of $50
16 or more joins to DeliaTS.com: bonus of $50 *plus* $3 each

All joins from October 3rd through October 31st count. The only method we have to pay you is via money order, and you will have to email us your name and address because of the way the ccbill program is administered (you have the option to not share that info with us when you sign up since CCBill is the one who sends your checks). Payments will be sent before November 26th, 2009 provided you've sent us your info and made qualifying sales that didn't result in chargebacks, refunds or returned checks.

OOPS! A Correction, Apology & Thank You

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:00:00 +0000

On Saturday, October 3rd I posted new hosted galleries for DeliaTS.com and zips for affiliates and sent out a mailer with all of your link codes already built into the email.

Unfortunately, I made a really stupid mistake when I built the FHGs so the links were wrong and not carrying affiliate id's THROUGH when surfers clicked on them.

Two webmasters (see below) caught my mistake and took the time to write back to me explaining what needed to be fixed. At first glance, I misunderstood what they were saying and thought they were complaining that when they visited the webwhorebucks.com content pages that it still said XXXXXX in the links, so I was like, "dudes . . . I'm not that fancy!" and focused on the other millions of things on my to-do lists.

Later as I did some exercise attempting to maintain my MILFy webwhore figure (ha ha) it HIT me what they were trying to say: I TOTALLY FUCKED UP THE LINKS ON THE FHG PAGES!

Due to the way I jostled my brain during my exercise, it wasn't initially clear to me how I messed up, but eventually I recognized the incredibly dumb mistake I made and fixed it on all six galleries on Tuesday, October 6th so they were only wrong for three days, and only in use by a handful of people for one or two days.

As a very modest token of my regret at having made this mistake, I've added $3 to everybody's payout rate which we'll continue for a week, provided I set it up correctly (in the ccbill admin it says, "To offer a combination of percentage and dollar amount per sale, enter values in the Base Percentage Payout and the Base Dollar Amount fields. Enter percentages as 25, not 0.25." so I left the 50.000% part and added 3.00 to the base dollar payout; having never done this before, I have no idea whether it will perform in an intuitive manner, whether or not it will effect rebills, or anything). I hope I'm not adding a new mistake to an old one, but it's about all I can think of to make sure you know I'm mortified by my mistake.

I know it's not much, but it does apply to all of our sites, not just Delia's or just to sales made on those particular galleries. If we were a huge corporate sponsor and one of my lackeys made this mistake, I'd be able to offer a few of those $100 payout days as an apology! Of course, if I were a huge corporate sponsor who could afford to do that, I never would have been trying to do so many things in the first place that I'd have made this relatively minor fuck-up and I'd probably be screwing our customers and your traffic with a bunch of shady practices to line my pocket enough to where $100 payouts would be as easy as shitting yellow-speckled turds the day after the Fourth of July. As it is, we don't do those things (and I don't even like corn on the cob that much).

Anyway, I'd like to thank the two webmasters who saw my error and took the time to write to me about it:

Oskar of OutlawCafe

and

Mike of PornStarGals

I know when you have a million things to do it's easier to just dismiss a mistake a sponsor makes -- particularly an indie like we are who maybe just doesn't have a clue and no amount of assistance will help -- and decide they are unreliable and not promote them anymore so I REALLY APPRECIATE that they took the time to let me know.

On TOP of that, Oskar let me know how to fix it up so you can get your link codes off of our site more easily with your account number built in; I am working on a redesign of WebWhoreBucks as we speak and hope to incorporate this since it seems like holding our breath for CCBill's new system (which now doesn't even appear to have any promo content management) is not such a wise idea.

Anyway, a big thank you to those two guys. I also added a couple more FHG's for DeliaTS and accompanying zips to entice you to try again.

Name for Leak-Free Affiliate Tour

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:52:00 +0000

Perhaps stupidly, I named all of our leak-free/"clean"/no-exit-links tours for affiliates to send their traffic, "clean" or in folders named "clean" or "cleantour", trying to make it clear to our affiliates that they are for them.

This time, with Delia's new site, I named the clean tour entrance page VIP.html and prefixed each additional page with VIP. The reason? I'm concerned that surfers hover over the "clean" links and think they're g-rated or not as nasty/dirty/filthy/nude. I have no reason to think that, but from now on I'm not going to use the word "clean" in file and folder names that we want to get traffic to. I'm just suspicious that maybe the word "clean" doesn't attract clicks. Again, I have no evidence of that and our tours labeled "clean" have done perfectly, respectably well but I'd rather not chance it in the future. Things need to be designed with surfers in mind, not affiliates.

Things to Come

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:48:00 +0000

Just a quick post to say we're working hard on a number of things, making it difficult for us to build promos for you until we're done.

The main thing we're busy with is getting ready to launch Delia's new site; since she identifies as a transsexual now, not a crossdresser, and has been on hormones for a year now, she needs a site to reflect that. DeliaCD will still accept members/is still live and every member has access to ALL of the sites in our network, so don't feel that you need to halt promotion of DeliaCD.

Obviously we also need to redesign WebWhoreBucks, too (and a lot of our other sites); I was holding out for CCBill to unveil their new marketing system, but who's to say when, if ever, they will finally launch it.

Anyway, just wanted to post this to let you know we're alive, kicking, and looking forward to making sales with you!

More Banners for SpyOnUs

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:55:00 +0000

I just added four new 585x100 horizontal banners for promoting SpyOnUs.com.

Yes, there are way more important things on my to-do list, but I needed to get rid of the inaccurate old SOU banners I have on some of our blogs and stuff, so . . . there you have it.

Tips for Promoting Delia

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Tue, 12 May 2009 05:18:00 +0000

One of our affiliates had the wisdom to ask for tips on how to promote Delia, so here are a few things that come to mind from the perspective of someone used to "straight" porn and wanting to branch out to promoting "trannies".

First of all, the language. Obviously there are a lot of words we use in porn to describe people that are totally politically incorrect. Most transwomen don't like being called "trannies" or "shemales". But most affiliates' traffic isn't from people who will be doing searches for "transwomen" to masturbate to, so you have to figure out what will convert well for you and your traffic. The most important thing is probably to be accurate and know the difference between, say, crossdressers (men in women's clothing to varying degrees of passability) and transsexuals. They are two different "niches" which is why we're building a new site, DeliaTS.com now that she decided to transition and is on hormones. On the other hand, making the distinction between crossdresser and transsexual is less important with Delia, or at least less important to EMPHASIZE since her site is a solo girl personality site -- you're selling HER, an individual and less a generic niche. Delia gets compliments/great feedback from people who are looking for crossdressers AND people looking for transsexuals. Having said that, it's probably easiest to refer to her as a TGirl and use whatever other keywords work best for you (tranny, shemale, etc.), keeping in mind that we'll be able to offer more clearly man-in-drag type of stuff which will appeal to fans of crossdressers AND Delia's more recent and passable transsexual stuff once the two sites are running concurrently. In the meantime, I'm sorry for the confusion, but you will still make sales provided you aren't totally misleading people by calling her a hermaphrodite or some other ignorant term (which people have done, by the way, much to our chagrin).

Of course, you can just skip labeling Delia's gender in a special way and just refer to her the way you would any other "babe" you're promoting. Showing surfers what makes her special is more than enough explanation.

The best thing is to not stereotype fans (and potential fans) of Delia. Some of them are men, some of them are women, some of them are trans themselves. Many of them like crossdressers, many of them ARE crossdressers, many of them love hosiery, many of them love panties and upskirts, many of them love very feminine transsexuals. AND ALMOST ALL OF THEM IDENTIFY AS STRAIGHT. You would be hard-pressed to find a tranny fan who identifies as "gay", so don't put Delia or any other tranny porn in the gay box. Personally I think most people are bisexual and this especially goes for people who are turned on by gender-bending, but my (and your) personal opinion is meaningless here. For porn marketing purposes you should advertise Delia to the same audience you advertise straight porn to (and of course to specific tranny traffic if you have it, but I'm writing this more for people who don't). Some of your surfers might freak out, but the majority of them will be, at the very least, intrigued. Stick a few pictures of a hard cock in panties in amongst your "straight" porn or some upskirt shots with Delia's hard cock raising the hem and you will make sales if you have any traffic at all.

Right now is a very exciting (and marketable) time for Delia since she recently started on hormones so her boobs are growing but her cock is still completely functional and big (she doesn't plan to get "bottom" surgery so her main marketing tool will remain). People can watch her transition unfold through her photos, videos, blog and also her members-only vlog where she talks about the effects her hormones are having on her changing body. This is EXTREMELY exciting and unique.

The most important thing I can tell you is THERE IS A TON OF CROSSOVER BETWEEN TRIXIE FANS AND DELIA FANS. Most of our members prefer one of our sites to the others, but most of them are fond of elements in all of them. I can't emphasize enough that solo tgirl sites can be marketed as regular solo girl sites but with the expectation that the girl with the cock will convert ten times better than the girl with the pussy TO THE SAME EXACT AUDIENCE. Obviously you should still try to target surfers who already KNOW they love tranny porn, but you're really missing out if that's ALL you do. Delia's site is a major impulse buy for guys who aren't looking for a tranny site but cannot help responding to seeing her cock surrounded by lingerie.

Another important thing to know about Delia's site (and all the sites in our network, like mine and AmberLily's and others coming up) is that we specialize in legwear (stockings, pantyhose, long socks, thigh highs, etc.), panties and upskirts. They aren't the sole focus of our site, but we do all appeal to surfers with minor or major fetish interest in feminine underwear, hosiery and other seductive, softcore details. Again, for a lot of members, they don't care WHO is wearing the panties or stockings or tights or short skirts -- it could be me or AmberLily with our pussies or Delia with her cock -- THEY LIKE ALL OF IT. The variety of genitals wearing the same familiar fetishwear is very appealing to a lot of people.

Delia also eats her own cum which is a pretty big selling point and she has a lot of solo masturbation videos, some with toys, some with my hands interfering, etc. Surfers love her long legs and tight ass. We also do live shows and have round-the-clock voyeur cams which set her site apart from other tranny sites -- our stuff is homemade, full of personality, and very intimate in ways that are both erotic in that amateur porn way and also establish trust and personal interest/loyalty with surfers and members because we're a real couple in what many people think of as an "alternative" relationship.

Many of the people who spend a lot of money on porn and like our content are middle-aged or older men for whom this is a huge, extremely loaded (in more ways than one) taboo, either their attraction to transgender or their own secret trans identity as closet crossdressers or both. For many of them it's an extra bonus both emotionally and sexually to see a happy couple like Delia and I in a healthy, sex-positive, long-term relationship. It's something most of them never thought was possible for themselves and is something they long for on multiple levels. OUR SITES MAKE PEOPLE FEEL GOOD INSIDE not just below the waist. Most people promoting porn completely overlook the emotional appeal of indie websites like ours featuring real couples and their homemade porn - we fulfill more than sexual needs, and people surfing for porn often have interest in more than just busting a nut (even if they don't always know it from the outset). If you are able to appeal to those needs and desires via blog entries, reviews, or other types of promotions like that in a sincere, genuine way you'll do a better job of selling all of our sites. It's not necessary, but it does emphasize things we are in a unique position to give. Delia's site is not just extremely erotic and painfully arousing, it's also inspiring, reassuring, and addictive from a personal perspective. People return to our sites not just for the porn, but TO SEE HOW WE ARE DOING, what's new in our lives, what mundane things we're doing on our spycams around the house, etc. We are like stories with characters people come to care about in books they don't want to end. They want to know how our business is, whether or not Delia has come out to her family yet, what books we're reading and tv we're watching and other stuff that sounds totally boring, but makes people feel connected and loyal to us.

I suppose the question is "HOW DO YOU MARKET THAT?" All I can say is that you probably have to be a fan of that sort of thing yourself to be able to advertise it with sincerity. Fortunately, if you can't think of how to do it, you can still focus on the pornographic aspects of our sites and do well for yourself, ESPECIALLY if you're promoting Delia (pictures like this one are irresistible converters). You can make sales to people who really want to jerk off right now. But you can also make sales by making people curious and interested in something more unique and personal than that, too. That's really the important trick to learn these days when people can go blow a load on redtube for free, you know? All of our sites offer things you can't get on a tube site.

I'll try to get Delia to post some follow-up advice on all of this, too, but really it's pretty hard to go wrong selling Delia. It doesn't take much, just some traffic. If you are able to sell solo girl sites, you will be able to sell Delia's. A cock in panties or poking out under a skirt is just too fucking hot NOT to sell.

CCBill's New Affiliate System

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:39:00 +0000

After hearing rumours last year that CCBill was working on a new system for program owners to get marketing materials to affiliates I was SO excited to log into CCBill today and see them announce "Web Marketing System (WMS) is a new-generation affiliate system providing all the tools you need to easily and effectively manage your programs to maximize their performance and profitability."

Fuck. YEAH!

I just called up to be put on the list of sponsors who want to demo it. I'm guessing bigger clients will get a shot at it first, but even if that's the case I don't care because a) they'll have worked out the kinks by the time I get in on it, and b) once it's in place it should really help level the playing field for small operations like ours.

So many small program-owners don't even know how to customize their mailers so the promo links are ready for affiliates (I didn't even know we could do it myself until a few months ago) and without buying software or hiring a programmer yourself it's really difficult to customize your promo offerings, links, etc. to provide each affiliate exactly what s/he wants without giving them what they don't. I know as an affiliate I love promoting ccbill programs . . . all except for when it comes to getting the promo materials, link codes, etc. It's KIND OF a time-sucking nightmare with most sites. I definitely prefer harvesting promos from sponsors who use NATS, partly because it's pretty consistent from sponsor-to-sponsor and because I can customize what I want. I really really hope this new CCBill thing does all of that and more.

I didn't even bother checking the boards to see what people are saying before I called up (though I did get reassurance from CCBill that OLD LINKS WILL STILL WORK and THE NEW PROGRAM WILL RUN IN TANDEM WITH THE OLD so no work will be lost; affiliates who don't want to try it don't have to); whatever it's like it's bound to be better than what we have now. When I heard the rumours before I called and asked about it but the rep said he hadn't heard any such thing. I think that was during the phone call when I found out how to send out the mailers with the affiliates' numbers already built into the links. Anyhoo . . . good news. This will be a big help.

Why I haven't logged into ICQ in years:

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 17:06:00 +0000

This thread on GFY epitomizes all that is charmingly dysfunctional about the special working relationship between affiliates and sponsors.

On this particular issue? I can see it from both perspectives; each person has some valid points AND says other things that are pretty fucked up.

I for one think a program owner is going above and beyond to even BE on icq available to talk one-on-one to affiliates (or anyone else, for that matter). I know that I don't have time for it. It's not that I don't think it's a great idea to be able to respond to affiliate questions, feedback, requests, etc., I just think it's pretty hard to run a business and be on call and interrupted like that at the drop of a hat. You'd think, though, that if the guy makes as much money as he says he does and is so willing to reinvest tons of it back into his business ("noone spends more money than me on updates and on models and on keeping things unique") that he'd fucking hire somebody whose JOB it is to MAKE time to respond to affiliates in a better way and people to make sure the promo content really represents the high quality he claims to spend THE MOST MONEY IN THE INDUSTRY TO MAKE (why do people say such ludicrous things? WHY?). I totally understand feeling run-ragged by affiliate requests, but that's because I don't have the money to hire people to be run ragged FOR me. If I had the kind of money this guy says he has, I would not be sitting on icq chatting with affiliates. Seriously. I'd be making love to my hitachi magic wand on my own private island.

I think he could have handled it better, for sure, but I totally understand not having the motivation to do so. Finding a polite way to say, "I don't have time to customize content for you (or we do not want to give away too much high-quality video or whatever) nor do I have the need to because it has a proven record of converting" is probably not as satisfying from a personal perspective as ripping somebody a new asshole for assuming that just because you are a paysite owner and sponsor that someone can tell you your content is junk and you should JUMP to accommodate their desires, though I don't think what the affiliate said was THAT offensive. I mean, if you are in the habit of being offended by stuff like that, why make yourself available on icq and even give the impression that you care? Of course, not seeing the promo content in question OR any of the affiliate's work it's pretty hard to judge whether either of them has a point. Years ago I posted a guest gallery from one of the TushyCash sites and I thought the content was hot (if the quality was average it really didn't detract from it's worth because of the hotness of the fetish/role-playing); I haven't looked at it much in recent years because I always felt like I had to doublecheck my link codes more than usual because of the way their program is set up (kind of confusing); maybe it's changed since then, though.

I agree with the person who said they're both acting like crybabies. I also have to laugh any time anyone in this industry accuses someone else of not being "professional". For one thing, anyone who levels that accusation almost always has a huge double standard/is a total hypocrite when it comes to their own behavior (usually not professional) versus what they expect from other people (bowing, scraping, and dishing out "the ~~customer~~affiliate (or sponsor, depending on who's doing the whining) is always right" nonsense). Mostly I just think it's funny because people want to apply standards of professionalism from OTHER industries to an industry in which modeling many of those standards is totally absurd. THIS IS THE PORN INDUSTRY. If you expect me to not use foul language in my communications with you because "it's not professional" to do so I think you are confused about what my profession is: I am a whore, a pimp, and a pornographer. It would be unprofessional of me NOT to say "fuck" or "cunt" on a regular basis. I make money on my fucking cunt, okay?

Don't misunderstand me, though; I do think it's important to treat everybody with kindness and decency (unless it would be reinforcing or rewarding indecent/unkind behavior to do so), but that has nothing to do with being "professional", it has to do with being a good person to everybody you meet regardless of whether it's at work or not. Working on the internet DOES make that hard, though. Not seeing people face-to-face makes it pretty easy to treat other people like shit. Still, I think there's a difference between being frank and full of a certain amount of bluster/larger-than-life-personality (a good thing, perhaps, when trying to establish yourself online) and being genuinely mean. I don't think anything said by either of those guys is a reason for someone's feelings to be hurt.

Sometimes telling someone to fuck off IS professional when you're an internet pornographer or smut peddler. It's pretty hilarious when people go to a board called "Go Fuck Yourself" to complain about someone telling them to do just that.

Quickie on To-Do's

noreply@blogger.com (Trixie Fontaine) — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:45:00 +0000

Just a quick post for now because it's been so long since I've made one here; first of all, if you've written to me I'm sorry I haven't gotten back to you yet. YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY ONE I SEEM TO BE IGNORING! Unfortunately we are just trying to do too much for two people which means a lot is left UNdone at the end of the day/week/month/quarter/year even though we are working our asses off.

A couple of the high-priority things I need to work on for WebWhoreBucks affiliates:

*GET REVIEW-READY
I'm glad review sites are eager to promote us; we have a few things to do before we re-submit to them, though, including tightening stuff up in our member areas, writing some guidelines for review sites (especially regarding "reciprocal" links that so many of them are requiring), special tours and links codes, writing ready-made reviews, etc.

*CONTENT/MEMBER-AREA REQUESTS
I'm going to renew access for a few of our affiliates who have had access to our members-only areas in the past, but I also need to think really hard about how we deal with these requests in the future especially now that we are adding new sites to our network that are operated by and feature people OUTSIDE our household. It's possible I will create a form for affiliates to fill out to apply for access to make it easier for me to get the information I need to determine whether or not to entrust individual affiliates with total access to our sites. We really appreciate the people who are willing to do the hard work of selecting content and building their own promos but we also need to be cautious about WHAT content and HOW MUCH OF IT is used.

*****

Of course there are also a million other things on my to-do list for affiliates, but getting review-ready and addressing our most ambitious affiliates' requests are the most important to me right now.

Next week we will be shooting a bunch of content for AmberLily's site and in the months ahead we're working on shooting for a new video site we hope to launch soon: I Make Porno (imakeporno.com).

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.