Here's some thoughts on todays state of things from my perspective. Your views may of course differ. Feel free to leave any comments if you like. I know I'm preaching to my teachers here and guys that have done better than me but I feel inclined today to rap like the old Catman : ) for the fun of it. It's April fools day.. So hey, ; ) Thanks for your indulgence.
Things are pretty bad now days. The money making paysites are few if any. A lot of sinking vessels. Looking for fools to come on board and help bail water. Many old school ones died around the fall of 2002. Memberships stopped converting. Recurrings went to hell. Members found TGPs and Kazaa and bailed. Probably a Kazaa - File Sharing, Visa, MC, Scrubbing, Shaving, Saturation kind of thing. I don't know for sure. But things started to slide in the spring of 2001 and went fully to hell in the fall of 2002.
During that major Visa MC debacle in Oct. 2002. Things just stopped converting and recurring. I couldn't do shit. In Oct 2002 I had twenty trial signups with a CC Bill recurring sponsor that always converted well. I got one recurring out of 20 that lasted one month. My recurrings also dropped like a rock all around. Now I have never been a big player but that is some pretty bad conversions.
Aah Yes 1999... It was a very good year. It was the last really easy year. 2000 wasn't too bad but a change was in the wind. Domains were still bought with optimism and abundence. We had big developmental plans. We were gonna develope them all. Now I've sold a few, let a lot go, and really only kept those with type ins. The crash of 2000 killed the domain market.
Today, memberships are becoming very hell to sell. Recurings are dieing or short lived. Free porn is all over hell. Lots of quality free porn. I see free tgp sites now days that are better than some paysites. I seen one TGP whose front page was over 1M in size in graphics with like 100+ clear large thumbs to free pics all leading to a ton of easily navigitable free content. I dont know how the guy makes a buck with BW overhead like that. Yet he had tons of raving letters from surfers who of course love it.
Sites like that are killing us all. I guess this is the new "loss-leader" mentality. You now have to lose money for a while in order to build a traffic base. You have to give the surfer one hundred large thumbs up front, offer them a beer, suck their dick and then hope that maybe, just maybe they stop back so you can build a traffic base and someday jack their butts for a buck again. Why should they. I wouldn't either.
The only thing worth a damn anymore is type in hits. But I see many type in barons have given up selling memberships and instead sell them to these SE sites that in essence then sell to other WMs! Selling to newbie WMs rather than newbie surfers. That's not a good sign folks. They can't sell type ins. You can still sell type ins but you got to know how and to who. A type in at best today is worth what a basic jacked around unique was a couple years back.
Now days one has to sell to those WMs who still think they can sell memberships or think they can. AHUM [clearing throat] yes to WMs, not to surfers. Thankfully some WMs still can sell memberships. Or at least some think they can. [newbies buying traffic for a while] Weve gone from selling to surfers to selling to newbies who buy traffic and a dream. In a round a bout way.
And file sharing, doesn't help the cause. That may have hurt the worst. It continues to hurt a lot. It's all free. Surfers are smarter. Pitches are getting old and tired. They have all been to sponsor X 365 times each on ave. Some programs give the surfer all their sites for the price of one and they still they don't buy. Why should they it's all out there free. And Newsgroups hell I won't even go there.
And the Paris Hilton Video. I'm sorry but that didn't sell for beans. Celebrity domains are dying. Celebrity sites. Used to do well. Now, the few remaining are almost conversion dead. Its sad to see. I had high hopes and some pretty good typein shit. But, it did ok for a while anyhow.
And chatboards.. yeah chatboards are just for shits and giggles now days and maybe to share a "toast" to the old days. That is fine. I gave up chatboards completely about 30 months back. I had to get some work done. Boards for some reason really suck up my time when I get involved in them. Besides I am STILL mad at myself I was blabbing on Netpond/YNot when I should of been spamming them SE's in the 90's. : )
Anyhow nice board here at Oprano. I aint sucking up but this is one of the fastest loading, tightest chat board scripts I have seen. Good to see all the old WMs. I think I'll hang out here a bit. : )) Ahh we have all matured a bit. We're all old friends. That's what I see on this board.
Feels nice to bang out a post again. Hopefully I'm not too long winded. If so just skip my posts. Deep down I still get a kick out of posting : )
Anyhow just some honest thoughts in retrospect. : )
I edited the heck out of this. Else it would of been twice as long.
Serge, The "annual report" from the trenches was a little longer in coming this time. ; ))) It's a full time job paying the gas bill now days. ; (((
Have a PROFITABLE day! : )
Last edited by Catman at Apr 3 2004, 08:53 PM
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