What percentage of adult webmasters monitor chatboards?

Is there a big group of webmasters that are doing their own thing without any contact with message boards?

Are there porn webmasters out there operating outside the community?

I remember back in the day with YNOT, when a new adult webmaster would stumble in, it was like finding long lost family.

Today, there are so many message boards it seems the boards create new webmasters. Back in the day, the opposite was true.

This has come up before and I think it's more than we think. I know I get emails all the time from people who never post on the boards, referencing posts. In addition, there are people I see at shows who never post whom I've never met who say they "recognize" me from the boards. :)

I think there's probably a small amount of adult webmasters who don't have any board contact at all, but I do think it's a small amount.

Mike, I think these days we are doing to "circles"... around a chat board, or in a city, or region, or whatever, there are groups of people who are aware of each other, etc. They interact within the circle pretty much exclusively.

I go to shows now and see the people I have known for years, and the rest of the people are nameless and transient for me, they come, they go, and nobody is the wiser.

Travelling a couple of year ago to a european show told me that there is a whole other world out there of webmasters with sites, programs, traffic, and situations that have nothing to do with the "US-centric" original online porn situation (which in reality was the US / Canada / Australia / England round). Their business models were different, they revenue streams different, etc.

There are literally thousands of russian and polish webmasters out there that we will never meet, never see, who turn out tens of thousands of free sites and piles of new membership sites each month. They would their own situations, I only find them when they submit to my link sites. Otherwise they don't exist - their programs aren't open to general webmasters, and they don't mix within the community. Some people would suggest that there is some very strong organized crime elements at work in these situations, and my lack of commentary should say alot on the subject.

G-F-Y has broken the barrier between webmaster and surfer wide open (a recent poll had about 20% of the people actually admitting to being surfers), which has further diluted the community and lowered to overall value of webmaster chat boards for business.

Alex

I actually think there is a fairly sizeable segment that don't even bother with the boards.

Alex that is a good post. This is where I was, if I did not know a webmaster I would not really go up and talk to them in the past.

Now that I am promoting a program, I have been trying to mingle more and reach out.

There are tons of lurkers on all boards. There are many webmasters who ignore the baords as well.

I wonder how many webmasters are clueless they exist? The number has to be pretty low - don't know how a person could operate in the busines and not know about one of the 1,000 boards or resources.

I think alex is right.. there are a lot of webmasters that I interact with that NEVER post on any of the boards. They pay attention to several, but they just cant be bothered participating in any of them. They talk amoungs their small group(s), and just go about their business...

I'm sure there are a ton of folks out there doing much the same....

Mike, considering that probably half of the biggest programs run some sort of chat board of their own, and people often talk (and post cross links) to other boards, I pretty much figure anyone using any of the major programs has probably found at least their board that gofuckthyself. The ones in real isolation are the shops who build everything for themselves, 100% internal, and don't work with outside anything.

Alex

"Today, there are so many message boards it seems the boards create new webmasters. Back in the day, the opposite was true."

Great comment Mike.

I would have to guess that all webmasters out there have to be familiar with some chat community whether it be only one board or several, but that a majority rarely posts or doesn't at all. I'm always meeting people who say they lurk. When I started back in 2000 I lurked for about 4 months before I started posting, but even to this day I don't post very much with the exception of my own board.

Yeah I was thinking same thing, most adult webmasters know about the boards.

of the 600+ people on my icq contact list, about 50 post at oprano, about 50 at gfy, about 50 at netpond and the rest I don't know about or know they don't visit boards ...

some webmasters read Klixxx and avn religiously, others read boards, others just work within their own groups ...

think of the 5000 webmasters (well, it used to be all webmasters) who visit an internext show ... Oprano only has about 2500 registered members, not sure about the other boards but even if you add up all the message boards and remove the duplicates, you probably wouldn't get 5000 people who are active on boards.

A certain program I used to manage had 14 000 webmaster accounts created in 2 years ..... I could only begin to image what maxcash & ars would have.

My guess would be that about 20% of people in the adult internet industry visit message boards on a regular basis.

My experience is similar to what everyone else has been stating.

I think most adult webmasters are aware of the boards. The percentage that actually post regularly is actually very small....the percentage who lurk is larger, but I think still the minority.

Of the immediate circle of people I interact with here locally, I'd say a third read at least one of the boards with some regularity. And less than half of those actually bother to post at least occasionally. Though GonZo more than takes up the slack for the rest of them. :P

The reasons? Tough to say... But the boards are a huge time drain. Track your employees or your own time sometime, if one of them is an active personality on the board you'll see it burns some sigificant time. Many cant justify that much time for the sake of networking.

Also, alot of the folx here are pretty isolated and self sufficient in their business models, myself included. That is getting tougher and tougher to do, which is one reason I personally am networking a bit more both on the boards and in person. And hey, it's always good to make a few new friends.

Personally I track topics of interest or potential business &
I post when I have something to say..
some days thats more than others

:awinky:

i never read the boards
i just drive-by-post

A problem which happens on all kinds of message boards is when a lurker decides to post something and their post is completely ignored.

Some people take this personally and never bother again.

urb, you are correct ...

many message boards have their own little group and they do not notice anyone outside those they know & chat away without noticing a new face ...

did someone do that to you urb?! :groucho:

I promise we won't ignore you any more ;-)
Welcome to oprano!!!

Great post, CJ. That's good info. And .... HUGE ICQ list. Damn!

I wasn't referring to this board cj :D

And thanks for the welcome.

I wasn't referring to this board cj :D

And thanks for the welcome.[/b][/quote]
name names Urb!!!
;-)))

Did you notice our CFNM thread here the other day?!?


Colin, it would be more than 600 if it weren't for this stupid new icq - it only allows 600 max so i have to delete someone every time I add someone new. Don't upgrade to the new version ever ever ever - its really crap. If you do, keep a text file of icq numbers of people you remove!!!!

How many of that 600 do you think are still in the busines today making at least $500 a month. I know that probably 20% of the email addresses I had are no longer active in the adult web.

Sharpie, with SexHit affiliates included, probably half ... without, probably 80%

Here's something interesting ....
I have my list broken into groups ... the number of people still active from each group tells a story ...

daily - all
purve - about 3/4
design - less than half
content - almost all
billing - about half
resources - 100%
celebrity bling - newly added
sexhit affiliates - very few
sexhit premium - most
sexhit cheats - only a few

hmmmmmmmmm


Sharpie, I've found emails change regularly and keeping an email list from several years ago is difficult - plus we all have multiple email addresses etc. icq tends to be a bit more permanent for most people ...

I just read it, thanks :)

Now that's a niche that's really mis-understood imo.

I'm noticing that boards (the creation of) are finally on a decline. About a year ago, there were 2 or 3 new ones popping up every month. Each one with an owner/moderator with dreams of taking down the "big one" based just on word of mouth. Ridiculous!

I run a small one, and have for two years. It chugs along just fine with a decent amount of posts, views, uniques, etc... per day. I enjoy running it, but I also enjoy posting and reading others including Oprano.

Mike, the one thing not to forget as well that back in the old YNOT days, boards (or board?) wasn't necessarily created with profit from ads in mind, or who had the biggest dick. It was really just an excellent medium to communicate with others in the then miniscule business.

I just read it, thanks :)

Now that's a niche that's really mis-understood imo.[/b][/quote]
misunderstood how? as in nobody realizes the potential or its promoted incorrectly?

we had some success, but content was too difficult to be bothered with for us. our members always love it :inlove:

We have a bunch of hosting clients that do very well that dont know or dont care to read/post on any board.
Most I talked to that know about them might read a little but say it's a big time waster.

It's a niche which appeals to both genders but is generally only marketed at women by affiliates. Real cfnm is closer to the s&m, humiliation and cuckolding niches. Reality cfnm is closer to the drunk/partygirls niches.

Records indicate that straight men are as much into cfnm as women are.

I have so much to learn!!

It makes sense though, its a reality niche a lot like these bang bus kinda things ... I'd never thought of the voyeur & s&m angle for a male audience.

Marketing to chicks is just more fun for me :yowsa:

cj -- get Trillian -- it's got a fucked up way of importing icq groups so make sure you delete your groups or you'll be hunting shit down for days trying to get organized... once I re-grouped everyone in alphabetical order things got back on track.

Don't we all?