Babenet Scams....

[Mike AI]

piecash, capitolbucks, sexpromote, liquidbucks, orgasmcash, etc are all front ends for Babenet's processing and such.

is this a scam? How do they get away with it? Is babenet going to help bring down credit card processing for online porn?

How do they get away with it?

[slavdogg]

i've been waiting for someone to bring this up
amazing how many programs are selling the same thing

Mike, dont forget your advertisers xbucks.com plus pinkpays.com, matrixbucks.com and many more..

[sharky]

have you sent to any of these programs mike?

I have sent to piecash.... did well with it in the beginning, however it seems their counting has dropped quite a bit lately.

I was going to start sending to orgasmcash and possibly liquidbucks, but am a little concerned now.

???

[Mike AI]

Yeah Slav, I do not know them all.... they seem to be popping up every week.

Do you think other webmasters know this? Seems like babenet is doing this to mislead webmasters and surfers.... and maybe VISA?

[Brad Mitchell]

I'll make sure have my popcorn handy to see how this thread fares tomorrow... :bdance:

Brad

[Mike AI]

Brad no need for popcorn, I do not think the thread will go anywhere... a lot of people do not care, or are too chicken to say anything.

babenet, is a 800lb gorilla.... and many people rely upon them for business.

[*KK*]

The Orgasm guys are in Canada Mike, they might be using a lifetimebucks setup, but they are not the same company. The rest I really don't know about so won't comment about.

I will say this tho -- no one company is going to bring down processing. Several, working in parallel lines, perhaps, but one, no.

[Hooper]

I'm suprised this hasnt been brought up before. I think you left out at least 20 more companies using their processing.

I stay away from them. They dont convert well enough for me to justify fucking the surfer that hard.

[Lensman]

Their strategy is amazing. But I didn't know that orgasmcash was one of theirs. But you're forgetting http://www.lifetimebucks.com

[Shann]

hey it works for us! :rokk: We are a totally different company, a lot of companies (no gonna name names) have actually offered to let us use their back ends, this is nothing new, slightly more obvious that's all.

And Sharky I loved your traffic, I'll hit you up on icq and we can talk. :)

[Toolz]

I don't see any difference to this compared to the ARS Build Your Own Tour system. You create an affiliate program with sites in it, determine what you're gonna pay your webmasters and find somewhere to sell those members too. There's probably 20+ companies doing this right now. Is it a bad idea? Well yes and no, no because maintaining massive members areas can become quite expensive. Yes because you have no control over your numbers and don't know how many actual processing attempts you're getting, thus you have to rely on the Babenet backend to be your stats program as the webmaster program. Thus creating 2 possible links where signups can fall through the cracks. As far as it destroying our industry I see a lot worse things coming from companies not using them for a backend. I've used several of the programs using them for backend processing and noticed fairly consistent sales.

[sextoyking]

I Hear Plat. bucks is converting real well lately.


I had to change the subject you know :))) :rokk:

[slavdogg]

Originally posted by Hooper@Feb 11 2003, 12:17 AM
I stay away from them. They dont convert well enough for me
same here Hooper !

[Mutt]

Mike i've posted on GFY about the scam these Babenet fronts are fueling.

And if you're a webmaster making money off their scam, and can't see that what they are doing is wrong, immoral, and illegal then I dunno.

[Mutt]

Toolz, how can you compare ARS to the Babenet operation?
Have you gone through their signup process?

[slavdogg]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 10 2003, 11:31 PM


Do you think other webmasters know this? Seems like babenet is doing this to mislead webmasters and surfers.... and maybe VISA?
Mike, i dont think its done to mislead anyone
If it is they're doing a bad job at it, after all everything goes through legalnudeteens.com or one of the other sites. As far as misleading surfers, i'v seen full disclosures on all sign up / credit card pages on the same screen. Its your bad if you cant read. Thats no different than you selling a trial membership or a 1 month membership expecting the surfer not to see or know that its a recurring membership.

As Lensman said it is an amazing strategy in many ways i would say, but you might not be looking at it from a right perspective

I see it as growing lifetimebucks.com horizontally though 20 dif programs.
At the same time selling a 40$ membership and paying out about $40.

Why some programs are paying out $30 and others 45$ i dont know, they all look the same to me.


Bottom line they dont convert better than normal sites with a paid trial.

[GregP]

Bottom line they dont convert better than normal sites with a paid trial.
-------------------------------------------------------
I disagree, I have done mailings for alot of companies and by far the best converting sites have been our own and others using similar backends.

[Carrie]

Maybe they set up a program like yourpaysite.com - which is basically the same thing as the ARS BYOT proggy. You build the tour and call it whatever you want, they provide the processing and the backend. You get $x per signup.

[Mike AI]

Do you think we can build a definitive list of all the "programs" who are using babenet back ends? I think it would help the community make more informed choices.

Also toolz, I think the ARS system and babenet are a little different. ARS is run by ethical, top notch people. Babenet has alway been very slimy... and continues to be so to this day.

[Hooper]

I think people are putting too much thought into how it functions.

You build a one page tour (say a teen tour) and the form at the bottom posts to legalnudeteens is all, with your code and the affiliate's code. You get like 45 or 50 bucks, pay the affiliate who sent you the traffic less.

[Mike AI]

Hoop, I think we all understand how it works.

But programs setting themselves up as seperaste, independant programs are merely resellers for babenet. This is a typical MLM setup....

The problem is when babenet keeps fleecing all the surfers, it starts bulding up issues where surfers get burned and this leads to compalints, and lower conversions for everyone.

Also if babenet bites the bullet, then all the "programs" in the pyramid would go down as well.

I personally prefer to send traffic to programs that stand on their own, manage all of their work, which gives them incentives to make things happen anddo things right.

Could be a reason we never had good conversions with any of the programs above.... heck, they should not even be called programs, more like resellers, or affiliates, or something.

[Platinum Dave]

As someone said earlier I am surprised this issue was not brought up long time ago.

How easy it for someone to start an affiliate program when all you need is pay site designs and babenet backend.

I dont like it either, I am sure this will play out in the next few months.

[Razoractive]

Hey Guys,

Razoractive here from OrgasmCash.
Here's the deal with the Babenet situation, right now OrgasmCash is currently working with multiple companies and if you were to go through our program you would see that.
We are working with several others on the back-end because we are sharing merchant accounts to do processing.

What you guys/gals should do is look at our testimonials @ http://www.orgasmcash.com and see what our webmasters are saying about us.

Razoractive

[GregP]

As someone said earlier I am surprised this issue was not brought up long time ago.

How easy it for someone to start an affiliate program when all you need is pay site designs and babenet backend.

I dont like it either, I am sure this will play out in the next few months.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
That's Funny Dave , Why do you send us traffic then??

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by Platinum Dave@Feb 11 2003, 11:21 AM
As someone said earlier I am surprised this issue was not brought up long time ago.

How easy it for someone to start an affiliate program when all you need is pay site designs and babenet backend.

I dont like it either, I am sure this will play out in the next few months.
I wouldn't wanna be a surfer who joins the site just to realize it has seen 27 times it already!

[Mike AI]

Serge that is a great point. Imagine if everyone sent surfers to these sites.... it would be the end.

Razoractive, do you really think people of Oprano is going to read the testimonials you have on your webmaster tour? :D :P :lol: Thanks for the big laugh!!!

Razor, what other back ends are you working on? Developing any on your own? You handle the merchant accounts, or 3rd party billing ??

Give us details.....

[Toolz]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 11 2003, 07:40 AM

Also toolz, I think the ARS system and babenet are a little different. ARS is run by ethical, top notch people. Babenet has alway been very slimy... and continues to be so to this day.
Mike I was in no way comparing the way the "operation" is run but the way the Build Your Own Tour system functions is very similar. Webmasters can create their own mini-program and send to one mega-members area. No different than every company out there that let's you send to the join page, no different than them creating a tour and making a webmaster program based around the fact that joins are sent to the join page of say SIC cash, Topbucks, ARS or any other program taking join page hits currently.

[Mutt]

surfer doesn't stand a chance of understanding what he's getting himself into on any of the Babenet sites. Rationalize it all you want, if it happened to your mother while she was buying some other product on the Net you'd be screaming 'THIEF'.

How did this come to pass anyway? Did Babenet put the word out that they were looking for people to work with them?

Go look at the pre-signup page on any of the sites and then follow through to the actual signup page - read it all and if you tell me that is only 'aggressive marketing' you are seeing the world through very dark colored glasses.

[Shann]

I wouldn't want to be a surfer who joins a big affiliate site anyway, they all have the same shit, buy all the same content from eachother, is this news shocking? Every major company buys all the same content, minus the few custom shoots here and there it's all the same. Aside from REAL amatuer sites.

And yes, why is it that is this is such a BAD business model, that so many who complain about it send traffic to it? Anybody ever miss a cheque from PieCash? Anyone ever not get attention when needed? Nope. Anyone complain about being on our exits or getting us to send them mailers? Nope.

Send to who you want to send to, same back ends or not, but if you think babenet is the only company doing it, you'd be very very surprised.

If you dont' want to send us traffic, then don't.

[GregP]

And yes, why is it that is this is such a BAD business model, that so many who complain about it send traffic to it? Anybody ever miss a cheque from PieCash? Anyone ever not get attention when needed? Nope. Anyone complain about being on our exits or getting us to send them mailers? Nope.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Very well said Shann. Did you notice the post from Platinum Dave ?? What a joke.. They have never had a problem with our traffic before , or sending to us

[Razoractive]

Hey guys,

I think there a lot of people out there that you don't even know about that have front ends to babenets sites. Really I don't see a huge problem there but all I know is that people are happy with our program and were all out to do one thing! MAKE MONEY and HAVE FUN DOING IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

k gotta go and make some money now,

Razoractive is outta here..........

[LAJeff]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 11 2003, 07:55 AM

Also if babenet bites the bullet, then all the "programs" in the pyramid would go down as well.


I remember "DMR" biting the bullet. And alot of those "programs" in that pyramid went down.

[Mike AI]

Shann, Greg... I do not think anyone is bashing you guys. I have not seen any webmaster saying they did not get paid. You guys do a good job of handling webmasters. Since in reality that is all you guys have to worry about, sine the backend is handled by babenet.

I think webmasters should be educated, and informed on these issues. IT is like processing by third party billers. I like to know who programs process with.... I prefer not to send traffic to programs that use Ibill, and would never use any rev share program that relies upon Ibill.

Webmasters should be informed so they can make good decisions about what is best for their situation.

Personally I have never had any good dealing with babenet, and hence I would like to know which programs are using their back end.

Also if yuu are sending traffic to 3-4 babenet affilaite programs, its kind of cheating yourself with getting signups - since thesame surfer might end up joining the same sites.....

Just trying to educate webmasters here at Oprano....

[Mike AI]

I think there a lot of people out there that you don't even know about that have front ends to babenets sites

Razor I think you are right, that is why I am looking to acertain which programs are part of this. It seems to me that some programs may be hiding their association with babenet.

It seems like babenet is setting up a MLM scheme, and is doing this to hide behind legitiamte webmasters or other good people to get traffic and signups....

Just a matter of putting all your eggs in one basket. If you are sending to 5 different programs and they are all front ends for babenet, you are really not sending traffic to 5 different programs but 1. I do not think webmasters understand this.

In todays environment it is important to send traffic out and not put all your eggs in one basket.... incase the basket collapses you do not get taken out.

[sharky]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 11 2003, 12:04 PM


Also if yuu are sending traffic to 3-4 babenet affilaite programs, its kind of cheating yourself with getting signups - since thesame surfer might end up joining the same sites.....

Actually..
if the sites on the front end are different, it fucks babenet as the user is probably going to cancel the sites.... It wouldn't fuck you unless you are on a revshare.

Then again (and i do not know), if they are doing cross sells out the wazzooo it wouldn't really matter to them.

lol

:-)

[LAJeff]

Ya babenet has been way better than then trying to wait on epoch to payout.
When epoch is slow it causes the webmaster program to payout slow.
Babenet at least pays on time.

[Mike AI]

LAJeff the point you make is very valid, and something webmasters should be aware of. It is a plus about babenet.

Sharky, come one you know about babenet, you have been around. Do you really think they are going to "loose" on a signup they pay out on?

[RawAlex]

Here is my take and sort of question on the concept:

If each of these programs is using babenet as "processing" and "backend", does that not create alot of risk against Visa? Let me explain:

Babenet is the only one with processing in this whole discussion. Let's say 20 different programs are in fact using babenet as the actual site. Let's say that, for whatever reason, Babenet goes out of compliance with Visa and loses processing.

Suddenly 20 programs when out of compliance at the same time.

Just as importantly, there are people who choose not to do business with certain companies. Without programs totally disclosing the nature of their business arrangements, it would be very likely that someone who doesn't want to do business with babenet, example, might end up using otherwebmasterprogram.com and end up dealing with babenet anyway.

Most importantly, the money to pay the middle men programs comes from somewhere - and hint, I don't suspect it comes out of babenet's piece fo the pie. I'll let you all figure out where that money comes from.

Alex

[Shann]

So the only programs that are "questionable" are ones with Babenet backends and of course no one will send to rev share.

Isnt' using Babenet a great way to get your foot in the door so you can optimize your tours grow your database, nail down eveything THEN maybe start your own backend? I just can't see why all of a sudden this is a major issue.

We are totally upfront about who our back end is, and I've never had anyone tell me "no way, i got babenet issues" and if someone HAS babenet issues what are they? I'm dying to know.

Where are these surfer ethics coming from? Is recurring billing not also questionable technically? They want to buy porn, let em. They dont' care who the back end is. If they dont' like it, they can cancel or charge back. Webmasters get paid from me $40, I don't hear them complaining about their surfers.

[Mike AI]

Shann, I think you are getting the wrong vibe from this.

We are not attacking Piecash. It appears the babenet back end offers a nice setup for new webmasters who want to get into running a program.

But it is not the same as running an 100% independant program.

It is a lot like revshare, where anyone can set up a front end/back end and get affiliates.

I guess the babenet back end is a great way to start a "program" from scratch without a huge investment of capitol.

The pecking order, at least in my mind are programs that do everything themselves. Front end, Back End, etc.....

Then rev share, because they too must run their back ends... of course they need to run the backends and members area REALLY well in order to make sure surfers stay as members and rebill.

Then the people who are only resellers for other peoples backs ends. This is babenet, and I guess ARS on some instances...

It is all a mater of preferance and who each person things can do a better job in maximizing the $$ per click.

It is just there should be another catagory for programs... so webmasters are clear.

PPS Tier 1 Porgrams
Rev Share Tier 1 Programs
Then tier 2 programs which has 3rd party back ends.

[ollyperv]

I've worked for babenet. In 99 they were fined over a million bucks by visa for their bad business ways. Never updated anything, sold live feeds that were not always live. Customer service guys that acted like the jerky boys.

Can't say much more but after working for them I would never, ever do business with them. All they do is bait and switch.

Pretty funny, no doubt they are still trying to upsell their "live" recorded feeds from 98 up in those sites and paying fat guys to chat.

edit- not sure if my user name conflicts with someone elses... it was not my intention to do so.



Last edited by ollyperv at Feb 11 2003, 10:17 AM

[Mike AI]

ollyperv thanks for the post.

This is the same experiences I have had with babenet as well. I am amazed they are still in businenss.

If you have any more info, would love to hear about it.

[Mike AI]

Shann, Greg, can you guys explain how the babenet thing works?

Is there a place online I can read about it, find out information to see if this is something I would want to set up?

I am curious how they handle payouts to their resellers? Do they send money to piecahs and piecash pays webmasters out? Or does babenet issues checks to webmasters in Piecash's name?

How does chargebacks work?

How do you determine what to pay out? Does babenet payout more based on number of signups?

What about count? Who handles the count of clicks and such? Is it you, or babenet?

Please excuse my ignorance, I am new to this and trying to get my head straight.

[originalheather]

I have and always have had a SERIOUS problem with any company that uses multiple front ends for a single member's area.

I had a huge fight with someone from a very large company (that shall remain unnamed now) back in 2000 for running 17 different tours, with all different niches, for one back end.

It is tantamount to fraud in my opinion and tons of companies do it. It's just not right to mislead the surfer in that manner.

If you're advertising a pregnant site, the site should have nothing but pregnant content in it, latin should have latin, ebony ebony, etc. I also object strongly to filler.

It just irks me to no end to see my huge competitors claim that they have 100K pics and a million videos in their latina site, but in reality the latin section contains maybe 10K latin pics and one latin video plugin, the rest is filler from their other sites. And we all wonder why the surfers have become gunshy.

In the redesigns of my site, I've even kept basically the same color scheme in my tours because I don't want surfers joining thinking that they've never belonged to the site before.

I have no problem with multiple tours, as long as they all use the same site name. I plan to have more than one tour now, and I may even change the color scheme on the next one, but it's still going to say Latina Pics all over it.

I get tons of rejoins to my site, but it's not because the guy doesn't remember he ever joined, he comes back because he liked the site. I've had some guys join 10 times over the last 4 years, but they knew what site they were joining. If a reseller of my site wants to build their own tour..fine, as long as they brand it clearly with my site name. Otherwise, it's deceptive advertising. In the real world, the FTC would shut that shit down in a heartbeat.

There is no valid reason to put different site names on tours leading to the same backend. I guess this falls under Nick's famous line, "we only have the morals we can afford", but in the end, it's still a scam.

[Winetalk.com]

http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.p...threadid=106761 (http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=106761)

sneaker
My posts are basically a brain dump

Registered: Dec 2002
Location:
Posts: 75
Better hope Visa doesn't find out you guys are "sharing a merchant account" when they drop the hammer it hurts. And remember MLM scams are prosecutable.

[KC]

Originally posted by originalheather@Feb 11 2003, 02:19 PM
I have and always have had a SERIOUS problem with any company that uses multiple front ends for a single member's area.

It is tantamount to fraud in my opinion and tons of companies do it. It's just not right to mislead the surfer in that manner.

If you're advertising a pregnant site, the site should have nothing but pregnant content in it, latin should have latin, ebony ebony, etc. I also object strongly to filler.
Heather,

Come on now.... You consider it fraud if a paysite over delivers on it's promises? That's a little extreme.

Providing a great site with a lot of extra content SOME surfers might look at will only increase retention. Do you really think it's fraudulent? As long as the site delivers what the tour says it does for the price the tour says and everything is disclosed properly, I don't see how that's fraud.

[originalheather]

KC,

You didn't read what I wrote. I object to sites claiming that they have X number of a certain kind of content when they're counting their filler in the total number.

SOME surfers might look at that other content and if you have a generic site, great, no problem, but if you're advertising a niche, you should tell the surfer on the outside the truth about how much of that niche content you have.

A general site can say they have 200K pics of whatever, it doesn't matter, but it's still misleading for anyone with a niche tour to either claim or insinuate that they have more content of that specific niche than they do.

We all know that there is no preggo, latin, foot or whatever fairly specific niche site that has a million videos of that niche.

Look at the tours of a lot of the niche sites out there..they are misleading at the least, downright fraudulent at the worst.

[KC]

Originally posted by originalheather@Feb 11 2003, 02:48 PM
KC,

You didn't read what I wrote. I object to sites claiming that they have X number of a certain kind of content when they're counting their filler in the total number.

SOME surfers might look at that other content and if you have a generic site, great, no problem, but if you're advertising a niche, you should tell the surfer on the outside the truth about how much of that niche content you have.

A general site can say they have 200K pics of whatever, it doesn't matter, but it's still misleading for anyone with a niche tour to either claim or insinuate that they have more content of that specific niche than they do.

We all know that there is no preggo, latin, foot or whatever fairly specific niche site that has a million videos of that niche.

Look at the tours of a lot of the niche sites out there..they are misleading at the least, downright fraudulent at the worst.
Sorry, I somehow missed that line when I read it the first time.. I would agree that it could be misleading..

There are a lot of misleading things about this industry. I don't see them going away anytime soon either.

[Shann]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 11 2003, 10:34 AM
Shann, Greg, can you guys explain how the babenet thing works?

Is there a place online I can read about it, find out information to see if this is something I would want to set up?

I am curious how they handle payouts to their resellers? Do they send money to piecahs and piecash pays webmasters out? Or does babenet issues checks to webmasters in Piecash's name?

How does chargebacks work?

How do you determine what to pay out? Does babenet payout more based on number of signups?

What about count? Who handles the count of clicks and such? Is it you, or babenet?

Please excuse my ignorance, I am new to this and trying to get my head straight.
Sure you're new! lol

For info on www.piecash.com go there and click on Program Details, that's always a good start. :)

Do you mean set up your own front ends with Babenet Mike AI? I think you would need to speak to them directly on that if you wanted to go that route.

Piecash pays out twice a month, 5 days after the pay period is over so we payout on the 5th and the 20th. The cheques come from us, Real World Media LLC. Not sure when Babenet pays us, doesn't seem relevant.

There are no chargebacks to the webmaster.

How do we determine what to pay out? Why we picked it out of a hat of course! lol It was predetermined before we launched our program. We payout $40, 1 joins a month or a day. Maybe more for larger amounts of sign ups, it's negotiable. That's our policy. Does babenet payout more based on the number of sign ups? I don't know, I don't work for babenet.

We have our own affiliate program, we track our clicks and joins it's all in our program.

Hope that answers all your questions! I'm going to the gym now, so if being attacked I'll be back in about 2 hours. :)

I'm also available if you'd like to talk directly on icq 52624206 or email me sales@piecash.com and even aim me trafficqueenxxx

Mwah!

[*KK*]

Babenet is not the first to run backends for other people and they won't be the last. I'm not sure what the big deal is with their setup -- it's similar to an ARS BYOT, somewhat similar to an AVS -- after all, other people are building sites and the premise is that surfers get that site and more content -- a surfer that joins two platinum avs sites from the same vendor gets the same additional content with those avs memberships... I think PMB was one of the first doing a build your own tour type of setup, years ago...

Of course when other people have these types of ideas, and I've seen one really good one that is along the course of Babenet's, I venture to say people won't be bitching nearly so loud since it's someone else handling the backend. But at the end of the day its the same setup.

If you truly believe that ONE company can affect Visa that much, and that company is not an ISPS, you probably have too much time on your hands. If you don't like Babenet, that's fine, say so and go on about your business, but don't get on a soapbox about their business practices which are not so very different from many others.

I haven't paid much attention to their actual signup process, but Visa's got specific rules about what has to go where for the disclosure and Visa's also got a company out surfing adult web sites full time looking for violations -- so if there are that many people using this setup, do you not think that Visa is aware of it... not to mention Babenet's bank?

I am not seeing where this is an MLM either... it's my understanding that Babenet is paying the intermediary, ie Piecash (just using you as an example Shan) and then it's up to the intermediary to determine how much and when to pay the reseller. Babenet in no way guarantees what will be paid to resellers as far as amounts, dates, etc that I've seen in all this...

Just seems to be making a lot of ado about nothing really important.

[Diamond Jim]

The litmus test on the "fairness" of these billing procedures is if you can hold the merchant account and not blow up the bank with chargebacks...I think people in the know are familiar with the answer to this question...

Where is Colin when we need him?

Colin, please explain the "The Nash Equilibrium" better than I can...

Here is an example -

<span style='color:blue'>
The Prisoner's Dilemma

In Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22, allied victory in World War II is a foregone conclusion, and Yossarian does not want to be among the last ones to die. His commanding officer points out, "But suppose everyone on our side felt that way?" Yossarian replies, "Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"

Every general reader has heard of the prisoner's dilemma. The police interrogate two suspects separately, and suggest to each that he or she should fink on the other and turn state's evidence. "If the other does not fink, then you can cut a good deal for yourself by giving evidence against the other; if the other finks and you hold out, the court will treat you especially harshly. Thus no matter what the other does, it is better for you to fink than not to fink -- finking is your uniformly best or 'dominant' strategy." This is the case whether the two are actually guilty, as in some episodes of NYPD Blue, or innocent, as in the film LA Confidential. Of course, when both fink, they both fare worse than they would have if both had held out; but that outcome, though jointly desirable for them, collapses in the face of their separate temptations to fink.

Yossarian's dilemma is just a multi-person version of this. His death is not going to make any significant difference to the prospects of victory, and he is personally better off alive than dead. So avoiding death is his dominant strategy. </span>

In essence...look out for numero uno. The Nash Equilibrium forces people to consider what other people are THINKING before making their choices also...ie, thinking about thinking...and if you are in an industry where you think numerous people are thinking we're on a runaway train towards the abyss, do you hop on the train to get what you can...or do you stand on the tracks watching as it runs you over...

I dunno....I just wonder how many people have saved for a rainy day..cuz it's starting to sprinkle... :)

[*KK*]

No more of those strawberry margaritas at lunch for you Jim ;)

[Mike AI]

Someone who is well respected but does not want to put their name sent me this in ICQ, I guess they do not want to be put in the catagory troublemaker, like the rest of us!

I'm not going to post this, but sorry, a 40 buck payout on an mlm program has to be shaved to hell. The business model simply doesn't work.

I tend to agree, I do not understand how a reseller for Babenet can make enough money to pay out $40. What is babenet paying out per sale? $45 cannot be much more...

So the program would have to do a lot of work, have servers, tours, customer support people, all for $5 a signup or so? I am not buying it.

Of course there is money to be made in exit consoles, I am sure they control that... and probably where the real money is in this business model.

And Shann, while I am not new to the business, I am new to the MLM business model that babenet is running with....

I have been working hard past month, and will continue to for the future business model I want to move HiRise towards. My business model which I stumbled into in 1996 is not doing as well in todays enviroment, so I am looking around and seeing what I need to do to posistion my company to be around the next 5 years....

Like Jim said, it is starting to rain....

[Mutt]

Mike Babenet has always had their own merchant accounts, i can't think of any other company doing the amount of dollars they do that has been able to do this, no idea how they keep them but i got an email from a video biz person who said Babenet is ......... hmmmmmmmmmmmm...........well let's just say they're well connected in many places. Meaning they have carte blanche to do whatever they want with somebody's credit card once they have it, a sign up is worth more to them than to a company that plays by most of the rules and has major costs.

Nobody seems to exactly know who Babenet is. I always thought it was owned by VCA, one of the largest adult video companies whose roots go way back, but there are more people involved in Babenet than Russ Hampshire who owns VCA. I don't think he probably has anything to do with Babenet's operations.

Also dont forget that Babenet pays nothing for content, what little they do have in the members areas is probably from VCA.

If you go into a Babenet members area take a look at which big boy gets the traffic. No customer is going to stay a member of that shithole website, there are ads lots of ads pushing them to other websites.

So your friend might be wrong, they might be paying out enough to these 'front' operators who are heavy heavy into spamming to be able to afford paying them $50 maybe even $60 per signup. So they can turn around and pay out $40 to their affilliates.

[*KK*]

I am still trying to figure out where this is an MLM, Michael? I don't really see it as that intrinsically different than an AVS or another build your own tour type of set up. Of course the big difference is that they are paying the intermediary (PieCash, etc) who is then paying their own resellers, which is once again not the way an MLM works -- the parent company would have to be making the payouts to everyone, not paying the intermediary the entire amount and letting them pay their resellers...

I thought Slav mentioned they were paying out 40 bucks on a 40 buck join, well that isnt rocket science and is easily doable, especially in light of people who pay 35 bucks on a 4 dollar signup...

Obviously if Babenet is controlling the exit traffic and the rebills on joins, it's an entirely doable business model, and from the paying on joins perspective, it's a lot less risky than the traditional setup for both the backend and the intermediary providers.

Is everyone getting 40 dollars per join? Could it be that some are getting more than that? Or less than that? I think there are probably quite a few program owners who would be happy to take a flat 5 or 10 dollars per join and not have the hassle of dealing with member areas, retention, that sort of thing.

What it boils down to when I look at it is that the intermediaries are basically just brokering joins. Not a traditional method no, but they dont have the liability of the unproductive members or traffic on their heads or in their cash flow either...

I'm very curious now as to this whole thing.

[GregP]

I have done alot of email marketing for quite some time. And I send to whatever program that makes the most money, I send to http://www.sexpromote.com everyday , I make much more sending to my own sites then any other program I have ever tried. I have done test signups and guess what??? Every single one has been accounted for.
Another thing , believe me , there is alot of money to be made in this business model.

[Mike AI]

KK I do not know the details, so I am as confused as you are.

Does babenet control the exit or does the program?

I mention it as a MLM program because babenet does more then process for them, and provie authentication ( which is what an AVS does). It appears babenet provides the entire back end, the entire members area. So in essence you are selling babenet members access. There are more then one company doing it, and there seems to be levels... so that is how I come up with the MULTI - LEVEL MARKETING.

It could be a wonderful business model, I am just trying to understand it 100%. If I wanted to be a reseller for babenet, where would I go to find out the details? Who has the information?

[slavdogg]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 11 2003, 06:21 PM
There are more then one company doing it, and there seems to be levels... so that is how I come up with the MULTI - LEVEL MARKETING.
come on Mike, if thats what you call an MLM anything could be considered an MLM

crossbilling would be an MLM
i dont really see any levels here but as Toolz said the set up is roughly the same as ARS BYOT. Would ARS be an MLM as well ?

By this thinking Your House Mortgage is an MLM. Your bank always sells your mortage to another bank.

I think you might be streching this a little.

[slavdogg]

KK, from what i've seen it doesnt apear that babenet is controling the exit traffic. Maybe GregP and Shan can confirm this.

From what i've seen all these guys seem to be doing biz with each other. They either share or trade exit traffic.

[Mike AI]

Maybe if I do a diagram it would be easier to understand how I am talking about this as a MLM.


BABENET
( (
piecash sexpromote etc. etc. etc.
{{{{ {{{{{{{ {{{ {{{ {{{
Webmasters Webmasters Webmasters

Sure this is not the same as some huge MLM programs, it still is MLM to me.

The issue is whose customer is the signup? If customer has complaint, or needs something who does he contact? Who is ultimiately responsible?

Also another big difference, as it appears to me, is that babenet is hiding behind these fronts. With the ARS product you must go to ARS to deal with the codes, and support and such. With this, there is no contact with babenet....

This can be seen in 2 ways... 1 babenet does not want to interfere with their resellers. Or 2 babenet is hiding behind their resellers because they have a bad name in the business and webmasters who have been burned by them, would not do business....

[Winetalk.com]

I dunno....I just wonder how many people have saved for a rainy day..cuz it's starting to sprinkle...
********************************

I was taking penis enlargement pills for rainy day...

I am ready for content photoshoots,
anybody knows a good and respectable fluffer?

http://www.sergenaked.com/6content2/serge2.jpg

[GregP]

We control all of our own exits.... Speaking of exits we have alot of joins to trade :D

[Zebra]

Serge - You keep getting weirder and weirder.. don't ever change :wnw:

[SykkBoy]

Originally posted by Zebra@Feb 11 2003, 07:07 PM
Serge - You keep getting weirder and weirder.. don't ever change :wnw:
Wait til you see what the music business does to him ;)

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by Zebra@Feb 11 2003, 07:07 PM
Serge - You keep getting weirder and weirder.. don't ever change :wnw:
what do you mean "weirder"???

You never seen nekkid men before????

[Winetalk.com]

Originally posted by SykkBoy+Feb 11 2003, 07:10 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (SykkBoy @ Feb 11 2003, 07:10 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--Zebra@Feb 11 2003, 07:07 PM
Serge - You keep getting weirder and weirder.. don't ever change :wnw:
Wait til you see what the music business does to him ;)[/b][/quote]
Sykk,
already did!

I had to take a day nap,
they tired me down!
;-)))

[*KK*]

I dunno about weirder but he does look to be getting wider and wider...

Michael, if you have a point to make then come out and make it, you're starting to beat a dead horse with this MLM stuff.

I am sure you know where the Babenet site is, and if you wanted to talk to someone there you'd find a contact email on the site to use...

Hell if you get the exit traffic, *I* might have to look into this. It's been awhile since I've heard about it, so I'm sure it has streamlined and evolved.

By your definition you've made every AVS, ahem, into an MLM setup...

[Shann]

Originally posted by Serge_Oprano@Feb 11 2003, 03:54 PM
I dunno....I just wonder how many people have saved for a rainy day..cuz it's starting to sprinkle...
********************************

I was taking penis enlargement pills for rainy day...

I am ready for content photoshoots,
anybody knows a good and respectable fluffer?

http://www.sergenaked.com/6content2/serge2.jpg
OMG I finally get to see Tony's tattooed dick, and yours too Serge.... though you win size wise, Tony wins for artistic merit! rofl

And we control our exits. And yes, we do exit trades, we send traffic to other programs, and when we mail other programs (some who have slammed us in this thread) guess what? We get more sign ups then they do.

Example: Send to ourselves, 75 joins, send to pay sites get 50 joins, send to someone who slammed us in this thread, get a total of 34 joins and wait over a month and still waiting for the recip traffic.

SO if anyone wants to talk trading traffic hit me up, it's much easier than getting distracted by looking at cocks! Hubba hubba!

[DrGuile]

Lol,

funny how everyone here that doesnt understand what's wrong with the babenet model of business, and who are comparing it to the ARS BYOT doesnt appear to have ever looked at a babenet signup form...

please do... come back and talk afterward...


That means you KK



Last edited by DrGuile at Feb 12 2003, 08:49 AM

[cj]

Mike,
from babenet's perspective, this is a beneficial and safe move because

a) there are 20 programs contributing to the babenet member base of rebills. i know some of the webmasters who run these programs and the traffic volume's they are capable of. Babenet would be doing signups in the 4 figures per day using this system and at a rough rate of 30% staying first month and 30% staying 2nd month the volume will be enough to sustain a profit.

B) by giving a webmaster who can generate 200+ signups per day an affiliate program of their own, you guarantee their 200 signups are going to stay with you everyday plus a few referrals of the same size MINIMUM.

c) at no time is babenet allowing the affiliate program access to the areas of information that will bring babenet potential risk, such as processing. according to visa, visa has a deal with babenet and is responsible for all risks associated with the 20 'agents' running programs. therefore, you don't just let anybody run a program.

mutt, you are bitching about a different issue - the signup process with its upsells. THIS is what visa will have a problem with once the daily signups reach a point that creates the magic number of chargebacks for visa to say 'bye bye'.

in the case of piecash and any other program running on this system, the risk to them is obvious and the operators are staking their reputation on the success of the program.

it is not as dramatic as this thread has made it seem.

[Mike AI]

CJ I think you are right on the numbers... as always.

KK I really am not beating a dead horse, trying to find out the details. No one still has given them out. It seems like it is a quick easy way to build a program.

I was just curious how the dynamics work, guess I will have to contact Babenet and get the details.....

[DrGuile]

MikeAI, hit me up on ICQ when you have a few minutes...

[Mike AI]

Good Dr. I am on a new computer in Tampa....

my ICQ number here is 261986689

[*KK*]

Originally posted by DrGuile@Feb 12 2003, 05:49 AM
funny how everyone here that doesnt understand what's wrong with the babenet model of business, and who are comparing it to the ARS BYOT doesnt appear to have ever looked at a babenet signup form...

please do... come back and talk afterward...


That means you KK
So sorry Guile, apparently sarcasm and ridicule went right over your head.

I don't see a problem with it. If people want to use this as their backend then you know what, it's a free country and they are welcome to do it.

Is it the be all end all to having a program? Probably not.

Is it going to put us all out of business singlehandedly? Hell no.

Is it any more 'liberal' in its' practices than about half the AVS out there? Ding ding ding, nope, it's not, unless things have changed drastically since I looked at it in August.

I don't see Babenet hiding anything, heck they openly approach and discuss with people on a regular basis... of course that's how they get clients for it...

[ollyperv]

theres a bunch of dirt on babenet in lukeford com subjects.





Last edited by ollyperv at Feb 12 2003, 11:49 PM

[cj]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 12 2003, 10:03 AM
CJ I think you are right on the numbers... as always.

KK I really am not beating a dead horse, trying to find out the details. No one still has given them out. It seems like it is a quick easy way to build a program.

I was just curious how the dynamics work, guess I will have to contact Babenet and get the details.....
Mike, the important factor to success of a project like this is not allowing it to be an 'open application' where anyone can run a program. From my limited knowledge of their specifics, I believe that all program 'operators' have been hand selected up to a point.

I had an almost completed project like this for 6 months before i gave up trying to co-ordinate the number of elements needed to make this scale of project work. I can see the benefits to both babenet and the program operators ... the logistics are simple, provided you can always pay the program owners at least $5 - $10 per member more than they are paying their webmasters.

Personally, i'd like to be in the position of the program operators ... a guaranteed $5 - $15 per signup (depending on what you payout), with no risk of chargebacks, no members area costs, nothing but traffic and marketing. Being able to do what you do best for the most amount of money ... isn't that why we are here?

lets see what happens come april when visa launches PART II of LETS END THE ADULT INTERNET!


:P

[*KK*]

Originally posted by cj@Feb 13 2003, 12:00 AM
lets see what happens come april when visa launches PART II of LETS END THE ADULT INTERNET!


:P
If what I heard today is even remotely true, it's not going to take til April.

[slavdogg]

KK, what did you hear ?

[Mike AI]

I am amazed at the incopmetance of the people at VISA. How hard is it to crack down on frauds, and those who are abusing the system?

I could come up with a 5 step program that would eliminate a majority of the fraud from large programs and companies. VISA has absolute power on credit card processing, yet is as ignorant to the real problems.... and rather solving the real issues with a scapel, then would rather use a meat cleaver.

[Mike AI]

And CJ you are right, I have been looking around the babenet program and it appears it may be an invite only... which is good, at least they are not letting every twit in.... :o

[RRRED]

Originally posted by cj@Feb 13 2003, 03:00 AM

Mike, the important factor to success of a project like this is not allowing it to be an 'open application' where anyone can run a program. From my limited knowledge of their specifics, I believe that all program 'operators' have been hand selected up to a point.

Bingo cj. Can you imagine what would happen if this was open to everyone and their dog? It could very well turn into a nightmare. All the foreign spammers with their rape tours would be filling our inboxes with babenet stuff.

I, myself, considered this a good "temporary" idea for starting a couple paysites with cheap overhead with the intent of changing to your own members area once a good amount of money was accumulated. The problem with that is your affiliates would have to change all their codes. Then again, it could still work if your operation was "controlled". We all know a program can survive with a handful of good traffic senders vs. hundreds of smaller webmasters anyway.

The program owner is in a killer position with not only control over the designs of their sites, their own consoles, AND correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe they can keep the email list that is gathered. :inlove: God I love emails.

Anyway, it IS very important to know exactly who is following this model so we don't end up unintentionally put all our eggs in one basket. The joins we have accumulated through babenet backend sites have been better than the programs without. So, it's very important to pay close attention "just in case" something happens.

I'm shocked that no one is mentioning the other company/companies that are doing this same thing. Everyone keeps talking about ARS but that isn't the same because they are not letting their webmasters run entire affiliate programs, just individual sites.

You know, for some reason this reminds me of being on the Netpond newbie board when I started out and the big thing was to mass produce as many free sites, avs, and tgps all pointing to the same program. Now I guess mass producing front ends with little thought or care for what happens after the sale is the "thing to do".

I'm not necessarily for or against. Just intrigued

[Peaches]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Feb 14 2003, 02:13 PM
I am amazed at the incopmetance of the people at VISA. How hard is it to crack down on frauds, and those who are abusing the system?
But don't the CC companies make money each time there's a transaction? So if there are 10,000 fraudulent transaction, they make fees. Then they make fees on the chargebacks. Then they get to charge 29% interest and say it's because the fraud rates are so high, when in reality, in most cases, they aren't out a dime - the merchant is. They have no real incentive to stop fraud, do they?

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by Diamond Jim@Feb 11 2003, 04:12 PM
The litmus test on the "fairness" of these billing procedures is if you can hold the merchant account and not blow up the bank with chargebacks...I think people in the know are familiar with the answer to this question...

Where is Colin when we need him?

Colin, please explain the "The Nash Equilibrium" better than I can...

Here is an example -


The Prisoner's Dilemma

In Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22, allied victory in World War II is a foregone conclusion, and Yossarian does not want to be among the last ones to die. His commanding officer points out, "But suppose everyone on our side felt that way?" Yossarian replies, "Then I'd certainly be a damned fool to feel any other way, wouldn't I?"

Every general reader has heard of the prisoner's dilemma. The police interrogate two suspects separately, and suggest to each that he or she should fink on the other and turn state's evidence. "If the other does not fink, then you can cut a good deal for yourself by giving evidence against the other; if the other finks and you hold out, the court will treat you especially harshly. Thus no matter what the other does, it is better for you to fink than not to fink -- finking is your uniformly best or 'dominant' strategy." This is the case whether the two are actually guilty, as in some episodes of NYPD Blue, or innocent, as in the film LA Confidential. Of course, when both fink, they both fare worse than they would have if both had held out; but that outcome, though jointly desirable for them, collapses in the face of their separate temptations to fink.

Yossarian's dilemma is just a multi-person version of this. His death is not going to make any significant difference to the prospects of victory, and he is personally better off alive than dead. So avoiding death is his dominant strategy.

In essence...look out for numero uno. The Nash Equilibrium forces people to consider what other people are THINKING before making their choices also...ie, thinking about thinking...and if you are in an industry where you think numerous people are thinking we're on a runaway train towards the abyss, do you hop on the train to get what you can...or do you stand on the tracks watching as it runs you over...

I dunno....I just wonder how many people have saved for a rainy day..cuz it's starting to sprinkle... :)
Jim,

I have also thought of game theory and it's application to ethical decisions adult companies contemplate. I should probably keep my conclusions to myself. The risk is too high.

The deal on game theory for anyone interested. Game theory is just what it sounds like. The
theory of how games are played. Most of the classical interest in game theory has revolved
around two party zero sum games.

* Two party zero sum games have two participants

* Zero sum means that the sum of the reward or penalties is always constant (years in
prison, money, whatever). Example, two people play a game and $100 is divided between them depending on how they play the game.

The "Nash Equilibrium" occurs when both parties have made a decision such that if either of
them changes their strategy and the other doesn't, they end up worse off than they
were before. It was authored by John Nash, the mathematician from the movie "A Beautiful Mind".

Game theory has been used to analyze political strategies such as whether one should defect
from a treaty or uphold it. Is it better to make an arms agreement with a rival nation and illegally break it or hold to it hoping the other nation does too?

Game theory was used during World War II in the consideration of Japanese bombing targets. Should one always bomb the best targets or will that lead to increased defense of those targets? I believe the answer was a mixed strategy. Sometimes you bomb the best ones, sometimes not. Often in life, according to game theory, the best answer is a mixed strategy.

In football for example, passing attempts yield more yards than rushing attempts however a mixed strategy is usually better and one reason is that if the defense knows you will pass every down, that nice high yards per pass attempt will head straight down. There are exceptions of course.

It's really interesting to consider the glut of free content with game theory in mind. Is it
worth it for TGP owners to saturate the market in order to make meager profits themselves if
it decreases the overall sales in the entire market?

[RawAlex]

It's really interesting to consider the glut of free content with game theory in mind. Is it
worth it for TGP owners to saturate the market in order to make meager profits themselves if
it decreases the overall sales in the entire market?

Colin, this question would be good if the TGP owner had something to lose to start with - they don't. They start with no income, move up to some income, they are better off than when they started. From their solitary point of view, things went from worse to better.

The people paying the price are not related to the ones making the new income, so there is no feedback circle to stop the negative results. Program owners know that if they start to turn down TGP traffic (not even sure how they could), someone else will take it and they will lose MORE sales as a result.

The one thing I have learned in this business is that there is always someone willing to work on an even smaller margin. It's stunning, sometimes.

Alex

[originalheather]

Is it
worth it for TGP owners to saturate the market in order to make meager profits themselves if
it decreases the overall sales in the entire market?


Unfortunately, most people can't comprehend game theory (I barely grasped it when I read the book, I'd imagine there are only a handful of folks here that do understand it completely), and even fewer bother to contemplate the consequences of their business strategies. The "me first and only me" rationale that seems to be prevalent in this industry does indeed seem to be bound to destroy us all.

I remember many of us causing an uproar several years ago when TGP's first emerged, saying that it would decrease paysite sales and affect the entire industry. It seems to have come to pass because I don't believe that it's only the world economy that has caused the virtual downfall of online porn.

The glut of free content and broadband access has made it far less attractive to the surfer to pay for porn. I've heard this from many more men recently in the real world. They have access to almost all the content found in paysites for free, video is readily available and what's not on TGP's is on napster-style sites.

Hosted galleries following the free content and hosting that all sponsors now have to offer to be able to compete with the large companies are only adding to this problem. It's gotten to the point where any John Doe from Bodunk can open his own porn business because there is virtually no investment on his part, so the more people that enter the business part-time to make 100 extra bucks a month, the smaller the piece of the pie becomes. No one even has to have the basic knowledge of html, graphics or design, it's all done for them now.

Add that to there being enough bad paysites out there to burn out the paying surfer and most of us are in trouble. The few that are making money now don't think about the future, but it's been that way since the beginning of this industry.

The vast majority of people in the adult biz had no prior business education or experience, so trying to explain any of this to them is like banging your head against a brick wall, very few will listen or care. They're here to grab what they can and refuse to envision what appears to be the rapid demise of the industry as a whole.

[originalheather]

Ok, lol, Alex was posting at the same time I was and managed to say it all in a lot fewer words..I should just edit my post to say, "yeah, what he said!" :D

[RRRED]

:rokk: sista!

"Take this job and shove it.... " hehe

BTW Heather, we had "the talk" and it went very good :) You'll hear something really soon.

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Feb 14 2003, 02:55 PM
Colin, this question would be good if the TGP owner had something to lose to start with - they don't. They start with no income, move up to some income, they are better off than when they started. From their solitary point of view, things went from worse to better.



It's STILL a good question. In fact it is still THE question. It's not a question of whether they are better off than before but rather whether they are better off than they would have been. Isn't that THE question we are considering and not the one you are suggesting? We all know companies that defected from the standards and rules most of us adhere to do better in the short-run and some of them even did better than they ever would have by not defecting.

Without the free content glut, a TGP webmaster may have put effort into another free site endeavor with little start up capital, taken more time to get going but eventually made more money. Maybe without TGPs, it takes twice as long to make the same money in other free site projects but then it runs ahead.

The answer as to what is better may be either but it's still a fantastically interesting question, both specifically and in general.

The question is not which path is better. The question is which path is best.




Last edited by Colin at Feb 14 2003, 03:09 PM

[originalheather]

In fact it is still THE question

The problem is that there are very few willing to consider the question, even if they could understsand it in the first place. B)

[Mutt]

Does anybody know if overall revenues from Net porn have declined this year to last, last year to the year before? Or did it plateau? Or................is Net porn revenue still growing somewhat but the pie is being nibbled on by more webmasters and programs so that everybody is seeing drop in business even tho biz might still be growing?

CCBill, IBill and Epoch know the answer. Only they can know for sure. They have the historical data and between them probably process 80% of all porn transactions.

[Tipsy]

Sorry but little to add to this as it really has all been said above. I really just wanted to say wow - one of the only (the only?) educated discussions I've seen and most of the posts with a very good understanding of the causes of delining sales and true impact of free porn.

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by originalheather@Feb 14 2003, 03:14 PM
The problem is that there are very few willing to consider the question, even if they could understsand it in the first place. B)
Most of us act locally. What happens globally is the sum.

Porn as an industry is so unique. It's not like we can ask anyone to bail us out if the evolution of the industry is such that it ends up a dodo bird. - as happened to the airline industry for example.

Laissez faire is pure evolution. Sometimes it produces evolutionary hiccups.

[The Other Steve]

Finally - a chance to get a word in - this thread has been zooming along like a rocket :)

It's really refreshing for someone to come out and say what a lot of us knew - most parts of the adult industry are struggling. Apart from the free aspect this industry has to be feeling the effects of the world economic downturn simply because it is a business like any other and there is no reason why general economic principles would not apply.

Interestingly not all parts of the industry are in the doldrums, some small paysite operators that I talk to are still doing very well because they provide exclusive content for their members areas.

Perhaps that is why the 'reality' sites are also reporting good sales - not so much because of the 'reality' aspect but because their content is exclusive.

[Rolo]

Originally posted by *KK*@Feb 14 2003, 12:34 AM
If what I heard today is even remotely true, it's not going to take til April.
Whatever you heard, then I´m sure that some other payment system(s) could sell as good if not better than visa/mc. If just the processors would start to spread more of the risk by getting more local/national payment options, then we could see visa/mc drop from 80-90% of most websites transactions to prehaps 30-50% (if not even lower) - without loosing income!

Programs using Babenet are ok in my book - aslong as they do not try to hide the fact that they are "resellers"... The setup sounds really like how the dialer companies build their affiliate model - it allowed them for fast growth, however it ended with everyone having their own dialer program, and when some of the dialer networks closed, then alot of the dialer program owners were missing payments, and either had to pay out of their own pocket to their affiliates or close their programs/sites/companies...

As for the Babenet sites/tours price model - well I guess they know what they are doing, and if VISA/MC didn´t like or know about the model, then I´m sure they will eventually (that is, if there is a problem).

[Rolo]

There will be even more free content in the future - there is only 1 way to stop it... politics/goverments, but thats probably not going to happen within the near future...

However I think its a matter of who controls the free content, not that its there. If people who control the free content is doing it to make big $, then it will be good for all B)

If it will be people who gets more excited when their counter rank rise, then when they receive an extra digit on their paycheck - well then it will not be pretty in the long run.

I wish that every paysite owner and every tgp owner could switch roles for just 1 day... then paysite owners would see how much free content matters, when getting traffic/bookmarks, and tgp owners would see the costs of having a paysite.... they might end up understanding eachother, and finding ways where they both will benefit :stout:

[RawAlex]

The question is not which path is better. The question is which path is best.

Colin, the problem is that this question cannot be answered - because everyone else suffers as the result of a poorer choice by any one person in the group. Like electricity, surfers tend to flow through the path of least resistance... and membership is a remarkably large resistor.

The first Picpost and the first TGP basically closed out certain options in the game. TGP2 was an attempt to reverse that, but even that suffers in the face of the poorer choice that is TGP.

Now the question is "faced with the current circumstances, what is the best path from here?".

Alex

[RawAlex]

Originally posted by Rolo@Feb 14 2003, 04:49 PM
There will be even more free content in the future - there is only 1 way to stop it... politics/goverments, but thats probably not going to happen within the near future...

Rolo, in a past life, I use to do rental car yield management - the process of pricing available cars for maximal revenue and utilization of resources.

One of the simpliest (and stupidest) ways to assure full utilization of cars was the "cheapest in the market". Basically, a certain percentage of potential customers will rent from whoever has the lowest price, all other things being equal. The cars are the same, the locations are the same, the service is the same - price is the point of difference. Being cheap gets you more clients.

However, those more clients don't make you the most money - and more importantly, if you are playing against other people in the same situation (and you always are) you often end up in price wars that lower the actual TOTAL market revenue and don't grow either company's business.

Free content, free galleries, free all that stuff is basically the same product. "If I give enough stuff away, people will come to my site and MAYBE buy something". We have passed from 1 in 100 to 1 in 400 to 1 in 1000 to 1 in I don't even want to think about it. This has all happened in the battle to have "the most for the least".

General "porn" is almost dead on the net as a result.

With too many programs willing to give away the store to get clients in the door, the free galleries / content / movie clips / etc won't stop. But the economics of the situation are shifting quickly, and this whole industry is due to shift gears VERY soon.

Link sites I operate have seen more than 10% of all listings go 404 or no host in the last 30 days. There are larger numbers of free site webmasters who just can't afford to pay to renew domains, can't afford to pay for hosting, and are disappearing. I ran the link bot 3 days ago, I suspect I can run it again today and find another 1-2% gone in that time frame.

The end of "as it was" started about 6 months ago... and it won't be long now. :unsure:

But there are sunnier days on the other side, where new choices can be made, less players will be around, and the same money will be spread to less people.

Alex

[Dravyk]

Colin, isn't the idea of the Nash Equilibrium when applied to economics, that unlike the old "do what you do for yourself" model and it will help the marketplace ... that it is replaced by "do what you do for yourself AND for others" turns out to be best for everyone in the marketplace?

The BabeNet thing sounds like it could be a bad thing if it is mishandled. I know the the YNP model from PMB has it so that if someone joins from PMB and later from someone's YNP (or visa versa) the programming catches it and the member gets an automatic refund keeping chargebacks down. (At least that's the way I recall Bill explaining it to me three years back.) So if Babenet does similiarly, it might not be bad at least in THAT respect. However ....

If I'm sending traffic to what I think is five different sites, and they are only five different front ends, I am wasting my traffic and putting too much into the same basket. Worse, as Mike says, I might not even know it is the same basket, and that truely does suck!

[Rolo]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Feb 14 2003, 02:01 PM
But there are sunnier days on the other side, where new choices can be made, less players will be around, and the same money will be spread to less people.
I hope that you are right :)

But I also think that we must not forget that free needs pay, as much as pay needs free... the problem we have today is that the free content is more widespread then pay content on tgps... the balance is out of order, when you can get more XXX content free at TGPs than at the paysites promted on the same TGPs.

However if we can get more "free" controlled by business people, then we will start to see changes in both the amount of free XXX content outside pay areas, and the amount of promotion for paysites at TGPs etc.

If free tgp galleries submiters are going out of business to be replaced by hosted galleries, then I think we are headed in the right direction, because tgp owners will start to ask themself questions like "how can I convert better etc.", and hosted galleries will try to sell more, and it will be accepted by the tgp owners.

[*KK*]

In any economy where the saturation point is reached, I think it's safe to say that cannibalism will arise. I think we've come to that point in this industry and this year we'll start to see a shrinkage in the number of players on all levels...

[SykkBoy]

Originally posted by Dravyk@Feb 14 2003, 05:04 PM
If I'm sending traffic to what I think is five different sites, and they are only five different front ends, I am wasting my traffic and putting too much into the same basket. Worse, as Mike says, I might not even know it is the same basket, and that truely does suck!
how is that wasting traffic?
what if one tour or front end didn't "do it" for the surfer? If you're bring paid a flat fee per signup, why would you care? The burden is then upon the program owner...if you were on a partnership, then of course retention would be lower and you'd run into more problems...

It comes to down to the paysite owners (or babenet) providing top notch quality service to avoid problems with dupes...for example, with DarkDollars, we have a lot of the same content in each site, but it's re-arranged differently depending upon the site the surfer enters (so whatever it was that sparked his/her interest is the first thing they see). That's not to say we're going to buy 500 cheerleader pics and say "tada, we have a cheerleader site" ;) If we ffind a duplicate customer, we do this crazy whacky thing called "provide customer service" and resolve any problems. We're constantly getting emails and ICQ's from customers and we actyually pay attention. Maybe this is why our retentions are better than average? Hell, when we had the big content database crash and lost 90% of our content, we kept our members informed and offered refunds and they stuck with us.

[*KK*]

Whats all this bitching about duplicate customers? If you've got multiple sites that at least have a good percentage of content that's not all the same, then why would you not want duplicates? It's much easier to sell someone something else than to find someone new to buy...

And I don't know how the Lifetimebucks backends are set up and unless someone can definitively say they are all the same then how do we know?

[originalheather]

KK's right. I'd much rather bitch about black boots in her hallway. :nyanya:

[RawAlex]

Originally posted by originalheather@Feb 14 2003, 09:21 PM
KK's right. I'd much rather bitch about black boots in her hallway. :nyanya:
At least you know they ain't lonely, living amoungst so many other shoes and boots... it's almost like a boot nature reserve... :nyanya:

[cj]

Originally posted by Peaches+Feb 14 2003, 01:17 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Peaches @ Feb 14 2003, 01:17 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--Mike AI@Feb 14 2003, 02:13 PM
I am amazed at the incopmetance of the people at VISA. How hard is it to crack down on frauds, and those who are abusing the system?
But don't the CC companies make money each time there's a transaction? So if there are 10,000 fraudulent transaction, they make fees. Then they make fees on the chargebacks. Then they get to charge 29% interest and say it's because the fraud rates are so high, when in reality, in most cases, they aren't out a dime - the merchant is. They have no real incentive to stop fraud, do they?[/b][/quote]
Peaches, this is not the case ...

Visa's VALID argument for the past 18 months or so has been that the adult industry (and recurring industry's in general) produce the most amount of chargebacks and administration work for Visa. Until visa introduced their 2% rule (where ALL merchant accounts must stay below 2% chargebacks), it was a free for all with visa covering the admin expenses at the end.

After the 2% rule, visa introduced chargeback fines, to cover the cost of the customer support. $100 per chargeback ...

Visa's latest rules include 1% chargebacks, verified by visa and BIG MOTHER FUCKING FINES (right ibill?) ... and i'm sure a host of other rules will come into effect.

Visa has NOT been making a profit off the fees - that's the problem!! If they were, we wouldn't still be getting new rules on a daily basis.

The most important thing to remember when we doubt visa's next move is that the credit card holder is the customer to visa - NOT US. Visa cares so much about their customers that they will support them at OUR expense .... "Why certainly sir, i'll reverse this naughty porn charge that you couldn't possibly have made"

Now if the 3rd party processors like ibill, ccbill, epoch etc actually bothered to fight the chargebacks with the REAL INFORMATION they gather, we might not have gotten here in the first place.

I gather enough information to prove fraud against many surfers who chargeback, WHY THE FUCK DOES NOBODY WANT TO SEE IT!??!?!?

Colin & DJ & Alex, excellent posts & discussion. thank you.


Whats all this bitching about duplicate customers? If you've got multiple sites that at least have a good percentage of content that's not all the same, then why would you not want duplicates? It's much easier to sell someone something else than to find someone new to buy...

that's the whole point KK, the sites don't have different content ... why would the program owner want to pay for the same member multiple times to the same backend? great for the webmaster, doesn't make a lot of sense for the program owner. and there is not going to be ANY recurrings if someone signs up for 5 sites, and if there is, it will definately become a chargeback of 5 X $39.95 after a payout of 5 x $45!!

[RawAlex]

Oh yeah, and I just got spammed:

<a target="_blank" href="http://www.xxxdirectsex.net/apie">100% FREE PORN
CLICK HERE NOW!</a>


Gotta love it... sure enough, free + a big charge on page two, after they have your name and info (or in this case, Serge's name and email... :-)

Alex

[*KK*]

Originally posted by cj@Feb 14 2003, 08:35 PM
Visa's VALID argument for the past 18 months or so has been that the adult industry (and recurring industry's in general) produce the most amount of chargebacks and administration work for Visa. Until visa introduced their 2% rule (where ALL merchant accounts must stay below 2% chargebacks), it was a free for all with visa covering the admin expenses at the end.

After the 2% rule, visa introduced chargeback fines, to cover the cost of the customer support. $100 per chargeback ...

Visa's latest rules include 1% chargebacks, verified by visa and BIG MOTHER FUCKING FINES (right ibill?) ... and i'm sure a host of other rules will come into effect.

Visa has NOT been making a profit off the fees - that's the problem!! If they were, we wouldn't still be getting new rules on a daily basis.

if the 3rd party processors like ibill, ccbill, epoch etc actually bothered to fight the chargebacks with the REAL INFORMATION they gather, we might not have gotten here in the first place.
that's the whole point KK, the sites don't have different content ... why would the program owner want to pay for the same member multiple times to the same backend? great for the webmaster, doesn't make a lot of sense for the program owner. and there is not going to be ANY recurrings if someone signs up for 5 sites, and if there is, it will definately become a chargeback of 5 X $39.95 after a payout of 5 x $45!!
K let me address these to my way of thinking - -which is not wrong nor right, simply my thoughts.

We've had 1% CTC in Visa US well more than a year. We had 2.5 on foreign merch accts for a while but that went away more than a year ago too unless my memory is way foggy.

Visa is not so much concerned with making or losing money on chargebacks as they are concerned with the brand image. The actual % of business that high risk -- not just adult but all high risk -- comprises is negligable to Visa BUT NOT TO THE ACQUIRING BANKS -- Visa is also made up of different groups of banks who are concerned with the amount of money they lose on sheisters that move their own DB's from one bank to another, burning everything in their path like setting a wildfire. At the end of the day, the banks that don't even do high risk suffer from certain high risk client actions. I will not name names here but the clue is a certain ISO under a federal RICO indictment on the west coast... how could that have happened if the gov't did not perceive some intent to defraud all the way down the oh so rosy path???

Why should ISPS's bother disputing chargebacks under the current structure? Site owners do not want to bear the cost and the cost is much more than the admin fee for getting the chargeback the way the system stands right now. If you don't think so, lets take a poll and see how many site owners -- ESPECIALLY the ones processing with companies that do not assess the admin fee to them -- are willing to spend 20 bucks to fight a chargeback with no guarantee of a win -- and given that taking the cb if they do not fight and do get passed the fines is around 15 bucks in most cases -- who's going to do it? Smart money is on not bothering, thus the reason that some of the people with their own merch accts dont bother fighting, they just take the admin assessments and the fines and move on...

Last but not least, are you saying that all the Babenet sites backends are the same or no? I don't know, I havent bothered to look since I don't run a front end for it... if they are the same then Rob and Jack are the ones with the issues, and should be stopping multiple joins from the same surfer if they dont want to deal with the customer service, but if they are not identical then perhaps they'd rather do multiple sales... not my business so I don't know what they are thinking.

Obviously they are doing something to make it work, or else the rest of these people wouldn't be using it...

When are you headed this way again cj, I miss seeing you!

[Hooper]

Interesting discussion, but why are we shying away from what is likely the real issue... not that multiple people are promoting the same back end... but rather the fact that they push

100% TOTALLY FOREVER REALLY I SWEAR TO GOSH FREE! NOT KINDA FREE, BUT REALLY HONESTLY I SWEAR FREE FREE FREE WITH NO OBLIGATION!

ok. not really free. you have to give us 40 bucks for the above free membership

Now i'm not necessarily saying i think it's wrong... Buttttt... that is what this discussion was originally about and i'm interested in your opinion about the billing mechanism.

[*KK*]

No way Hoop, the discussion was not about free or not free but about whether Babenet was the next Amway or not.

[Darin]

I don't trust these guys as far as I can throw them... and I don't throw too far.

[RawAlex]

... and celeb sites.

I have to assume this isn't being processed in the US.

Alex

[Dravyk]

Originally posted by SykkBoy+Feb 14 2003, 07:33 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (SykkBoy @ Feb 14 2003, 07:33 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--Dravyk@Feb 14 2003, 05:04 PM
If I'm sending traffic to what I think is five different sites, and they are only five different front ends, I am wasting my traffic and putting too much into the same basket. Worse, as Mike says, I might not even know it is the same basket, and that truely does suck!
how is that wasting traffic?
what if one tour or front end didn't "do it" for the surfer? If you're bring paid a flat fee per signup, why would you care? The burden is then upon the program owner...if you were on a partnership, then of course retention would be lower and you'd run into more problems...[/b][/quote]
Hello? Sykk? Because you might have noticed, not only do conversion rates to various sites and programs go up and down but often a processor suddenly scrubs harder than another. In these cases you want as a paysite owner multiple processors. As someone sending traffic you want to send traffic to different programs and to different programs using multiple processors, so if one suddenly goes down, you send it them less now, and send more traffic to the others doing better.

Now what if then you think you have your traffic set up this way, but lo and behold, it turns out the 10 places you're sending it to is in reality are all the ONE SAME PLACE, and it suddenly the conversions goes to hell or the scrub is turned up to grindstone. Yep, you're screwed is what!! THAT is what I mean by wasting traffic, my friend.

Whats all this bitching about duplicate customers?
that's the whole point KK, the sites don't have different content

Ah, thank you CJ! You have my very answer for KK.

Kimmy, I think you need to take a recent look at some paysite interiors. The rule of thumb is: join one paysite, get 99 others for free. And each of these "paysites" have 2-5,000 pics in a niche, and then every one of them goes to the same "mega area" consisting of the same 100 plugins. End of story. That, today, is your average "paysite": basically 90 AVS gold sites connected thru 90 corridors. all leading to the identical mega plugin links page. Tell me how you are going to hold duplicate customers to that and not have chargeback city?

[RawAlex]

join one paysite, get 99 others for free. And each of these "paysites" have 2-5,000 pics in a niche, and then every one of them goes to the same "mega area" consisting of the same 100 plugins.

This sort of explains low rention rates, no? You sell someone a latina site, and it has a couple of thousand pics and a few videos, and that's it... the rest is "general porn" or other non-related niches.

Burn though the couple of thousand pics (maybe 2 visits) and there is no great reason for a niche lover to stay a member, from what I can tell. Does this not also dilute the market and discourage future purchases?

Worse, let's say 5 people are promoting the same content from the same company, with 5 different front ends. Guy buys one, stays a member a month, quits. Tries to find something new, join what he thinks is another site, only to end up back in the SAME niche gallery to the same mega area...

I don't picture him (1) staying a member too long, and (2) being that interested in trying again - his entire view of the net will be "one big scam".

Alex

[cj]

Originally posted by *KK*@Feb 15 2003, 12:34 AM
Why should ISPS's bother disputing chargebacks under the current structure? Site owners do not want to bear the cost and the cost is much more than the admin fee for getting the chargeback the way the system stands right now. If you don't think so, lets take a poll and see how many site owners -- ESPECIALLY the ones processing with companies that do not assess the admin fee to them -- are willing to spend 20 bucks to fight a chargeback with no guarantee of a win -- and given that taking the cb if they do not fight and do get passed the fines is around 15 bucks in most cases -- who's going to do it?

this depends on the site owner or merchant account owner.
a dollar saved is a dollar earned
<_<

When are you headed this way again cj, I miss seeing you!

aiming for phoenix forum, or definately august internext in florida ;-)

[*KK*]

Sorry Dravyk, but given the fact that most everyone buys from the same content producers, same plug in people and the same feed companies, basically ALL paysites are the same and surfers should never join more than one, by your reckoning.

If thats the case we can all give up now...

cj- seeing you at the Forum would be awesome!!!



Last edited by *KK* at Feb 15 2003, 04:19 AM

[originalheather]

You sell someone a latina site, and it has a couple of thousand pics and a few videos

Alex isn't talking about MY latina site :P

Ok, I saw the opportunity for a shameless plug, I took it!

And just to stay on topic, if sites with cascading processing don't have a way of weeding out multiple joins by the same surfer, they are begging for chargebacks.

We precap information before the surfer even hits the processor (all but the cc#), that's how we catch multiple trial offenders as well. They are sent to a page that tells them that they've already had a trial to this site and are given an opportunity to join for a full membership at a slightly reduced rate.

The precap catches almost 100% of my trial abusers, and I have a ton of them! Since it's a special subid for my site, I can see just how many of them I get a week and it's a healthy percentage! Of course, I am getting these not because I have multiple front ends, but because a goodly percentage of my former members come back for more. I'd guess that about 60% of my current members have joined at least once before, some as many as 10 times.

I've considered offering reduced rates when a user decides to cancel, but haven't done it yet since the odds are high that the guy will be back anyway, that's why it's good to have a members area that's constantly updated and has a shitload of content.

Since the piece of the pie is down to a sliver, the only way I can stay in business is by retaining members and luring former members back.

[Opti]

Originally posted by *KK*@Feb 15 2003, 05:34 PM
if they are the same then Rob and Jack are the ones with the issues, and should be stopping multiple joins from the same surfer if they dont want to deal with the customer service


and if they are... then I wouldn't mind seeing Mike's list of which programs are babenet resellers.

if a CC number has been used to signup at piecash.. and babenet wont take it again... Then I don't really want to be mixing up sites from more than one of their reseller programs!

On the other hand... this thread does make it sounds like Babenet do have their processing sorted! Might not be a bad idea to try sending to one of them :yowsa:

[RawAlex]

Heather, your type of latina site night and day different from the latina sites offered by most mega programs, and I sort of posted that to see if you would enjoy the chance to mention it. Sadly, there is no real easy way for a surfer to tell the difference from the outside...

Funny, this is exactly like the video porn business - most of the money appears to be spent on the BOX, not on the content... which I feel might be a "one time" sales job rather than a relationship builder.

Alex

[KBpimps]

I can't believe you guys just got hip to the Babenet thing..........

I know most of the companies in question- they do unreal numbers with their current situation.
I am just waiting , very much like the SPAM issue was suppose to break the camels back- to see who starts sending traffic to babenet .............

As I know plenty of people in this bsuiness who fear what they don't understand,
then they themsleves TRY it.

I am not saying I send to babenet or that the model is right or wrong...

I am just saying whn one makes money in this biz...it becomes a monkey- see monkey do scenario.

Truth be told BABENET is getting some great promotion out of this thread...IMHO.

Just my 2 cents :-))

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by RawAlex@Feb 14 2003, 04:50 PM
Colin, the problem is that this question cannot be answered
A general statement about any thread that goes beyond two posts. When we start discussing questions that are answerable everyone will leave. Both of us included.

[Almighty Colin]

Originally posted by *KK*@Feb 15 2003, 01:10 AM
No way Hoop, the discussion was not about free or not free but about whether Babenet was the next Amway or not.
Damn, you're funny, KK. That was good.

[originalheather]

Alex, precisely. The BOX is the problem..they all have a lot of money to do fancy designs that slyly insinuate that there's more in there than there is.

I'm currently in the midst of a redesign, finally with a major designer, my first tour I did myself, the second one (what a disaster!) was supposed to be a more professional version of design elements that I made..

Anyway, I'm planning to have two pro tours now and we'll see if they do better or worse than my original (thanks to my ex I no longer have my psds of my first tour, grrr.)

I try to be as precise as possible in my tour language, stating definitive numbers in the hope that surfers will somehow or other notice the difference, but I'm sure that there are few that do.

Slightly off topic, but I'd like to know how others have been doing with those 30 minute free tours...I think that with my site, seeing the members area would clinch the sale. Not requiring a credit card would help. I'm flailing around looking for sales tools that will work. For a site that has a shitty members' area, the strategy must be different, for mine, I want them in there so that they can be convinced.

Anybody currently running non-credit card 15 to 30 minute free trials? If so, please let me know what results you've seen.

[Shann]

Gawd will wonders ever cease, talk about beating a dead horse! LOL It's DEAD. :matey:

This milseading surfers sending them all to the same members area is the biggest crock of shit I've ever heard.

ARS has how many sites? do you think they have that many members areas? Python has how many sites? And for each site they have a totally different members area right?

Pu-leeze. This debate is futile, I'm going to the auto show.

[Dravyk]

Originally posted by *KK*@Feb 15 2003, 07:19 AM
Sorry Dravyk, but given the fact that most everyone buys from the same content producers, same plug in people and the same feed companies, basically ALL paysites are the same and surfers should never join more than one, by your reckoning.

If thats the case we can all give up now...

Yes we all -- in a sense -- buy from the same content providers and same plugin companies, does not mean:

a) every large paysite has to be constructed in the way I described to 90 others

b ) every paysite has to be connected at all to every other paysite in that sponsor's stable

c) that (guessing these numbers out of a hat) with three dozen plugin companies and 400 plugin products everyone has to use the same five only and the same 100 only (which tends to be the case)

d) that paysite owners can't shoot their own exclusive content

e) that every members area has to be in the same cookie mold every where you go

I could go on, but what you got by "my reckoning" you reckoned wrongly. If this is the ONLY model for a members area, then yeah maybe we should give up because surfers are already tired of it.

A small niched site deliverying, oh 15K of pics of only that niche, and which displays care to be different or the best in that one area and displays (a certain feature lacking in most cases:) creativity is going to have greater retention than the 2 million image site with 4k niched content interconnecting to 90 clones.

This sort of explains low rention rates, no?

Yes.

Also explains why if you sell a surfer a membership site to XYZCash, you'll never again sell that surfer to another XYZCash site because they've seen all of 100 XYZ's sites already having joined one of them.

talk about beating a dead horse

I like horse-beating especially when they are dead. It's a new niche. Wow, this could be site number 101. Anyone got 10 pics so I can throw up a new paysite? :P

[The Other Steve]

A small niched site deliverying, oh 15K of pics of only that niche, and which displays care to be different or the best in that one area and displays (a certain feature lacking in most cases:) creativity is going to have greater retention than the 2 million image site with 4k niched content interconnecting to 90 clones

I'm not sure you even need 15k of pics. Our amateur site is up to 5k of pics now and our retention rate is a tad better than the industry average.

As Heather mentioned earlier - we get quite a few guys come back to the site and sign-up again too.

[*KK*]

I don't see how ANY free trial is a no credit card trial. That makes zero sense.

A surfer on a free trial has to be able to pre-auth for the amount of the rebill at the time of the free trial or he doesn't get to join.

Now if you are doing a 30 minute free trial moving to a one day or three day or seven day paid trial of 5 bucks, then you're only pre-authing the next trial price, NOT the monthly rebill.

But you don't just let surfers in because you think they might have a valid credit card with money to spend on it.

[*KK*]

Originally posted by Colin+Feb 15 2003, 10:47 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Colin @ Feb 15 2003, 10:47 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin--*KK*@Feb 15 2003, 01:10 AM
No way Hoop, the discussion was not about free or not free but about whether Babenet was the next Amway or not.
Damn, you're funny, KK. That was good.[/b][/quote]
Well it just seemed to be the crux of the matter given the start of the thread. Though now we're off on another tangent ;)

[Nickatilynx]

So we have to be nice (Spit!) to the surfer now,huh?

Its the end of the world as we know it ;)

[*KK*]

bandwidth leeching freeloaders you mean Nick?