The Triannual Report - A Catman Rant

[Catman]

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

[dantheman]

DAMN, I was asking about the catman and their he is.

[Nickatilynx]

Catman??????

Naw....I smell a large rodent!!! ;-)))

The first post was good....but this one is over the top ....

[Peaches]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Apr 1 2004, 02:44 PM
Catman??????

Naw....I smell a large rodent!!! ;-)))

The first post was good....but this one is over the top ....

Catman did like the over the top posts

Good post, BTW and spot on with most things

[JR]

people seem to keep confusing "the easy money is gone" with "there is no more money to be made"

[Catman]

hehe I'll bet noone has ever posted that long a post here. : )

Thanks Peaches. : )

Hi JR, Yeah, agreed there is still good money to be made and I wouldn't leave this biz for anything but, for the average joe times are tough. And margins are tight all round in every aspect of the biz. Just from how I see it.

But yeah things arent hopeless just much tougher.

[gonzo]

Originally posted by Catman@Apr 1 2004, 03:13 PM
hehe I'll bet noone has ever posted that long a post here. : )

Thanks Peaches. : )

Hi JR, Yeah, agreed there is still good money to be made and I wouldn't leave this biz for anything but, for the average joe times are tough. And margins are tight all round in every aspect of the biz. Just from how I see it.

But yeah things arent hopeless just much tougher.

Im sure Ive posted on longer several times...

[cj]

And the Paris Hilton Video. I'm sorry but that didn't sell for beans. Hell I was the FIRST one to buy her type in domains. I could of bought em all in the summer of 2003 when I was the only one who seen potential in her long before the scandal. The ONLY one taken at that point was parishilton.com. I bought a few in July. Things exploded with her video scandal. But you know what, I made more off selling some of her type in domains to other WMs than I did selling her to surfers! Even though she was number one in the engines and got mega type in hits.

Catman, you might not have made much off the paris video but you must have been doing the wrong thing with your traffic ... plenty of people made a killing.

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.

curious to hear what it is that's declined for you ... what exactly do you promote?

[Dravyk]

Hey Catman!

Long? Naw, apparently you haven't seen any of my posts.

And then there are Confucy's posts ... which would give Tolstoy pause.

[Hell Puppy]

Originally posted by Catman@Apr 1 2004, 01:24 PM
Yes its me. I'll answer the other thread in a minute. : )

---

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.

BTW, anyone know when Dean is having another contest. Hehe. ; ))

Everybody sing: "Those were the days my friends, I thought they'ed never end, I singed and danced forever and a day, lalaladeda, lalaladeda, lalala forever and a day"

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.

Yes Bob Dylan, "Things have changed"

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.

Thanks a lot TGP founding father guys. Thanks a lot. You paved the way for yourself but all your rules spoiled the surfer. Now there are 12,962 TGPs at last count. And 3,656 lame paysites. ; (

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 SEs. Hahahahahahaah what a sad joke. They are about dead for us too. They are now all pay per listing. Google charges 5 cents a hit. Hehe what a deal. Type in traffic isn't even worth that! And type in traffic kicks any SE traffic's ass any day. Still, I'm giving that SE PPL stuff a whirl lately but like every other aspect of this biz the margins are very slim. Filter too much with your adds and your kicked out for too low a CTR. Jack too many surfers and you surely lose money at 5 cents a pop. Why didnt we all start SEs. back in 1996-1997-1998?

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. Hell I was the FIRST one to buy her type in domains. I could of bought em all in the summer of 2003 when I was the only one who seen potential in her long before the scandal. The ONLY one taken at that point was parishilton.com. I bought a few in July. Things exploded with her video scandal. But you know what, I made more off selling some of her type in domains to other WMs than I did selling her to surfers! Even though she was number one in the engines and got mega type in hits. 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! : )

Can someone tell me what this says in 3 lines or less? I dont have time to read it.

I did quote the whole thing only because I know GonZo is dying to do some quotes from hell...

[Catman]

CJ, I tried sending them to a couple of the remaining major Celebrity sponsors and they just did't seem to convert that well. Not like they used to. I dont have a ton of celeb type ins so maybe I didnt give it a long enough shot to average out.

I also tried sending them to that sponsor prog that promoted her video. I couldn't get anyone to buy. They would download but who's gonna pay $50 to view something like 5 times. I think it was marketed poorly. Should of gave surfers a permanent copy for say 10 bucks and gave partners say $3 to $5. 5 years ago it might have done better. But maybe others did better.

I found the best thing is sending them to the free zines. They converted well. But lately they are waning a bit too. Celeb seems to still be worth at least 1 cent a type in with the zines so I'll stick to them for now. But that also seems to be dropping like a rock the last month or so.

Mr Skin has a real nice tour now days. I could prob get better than 1 cent with them. But I'm not a fan of CCBill. I cant seem to recur with them that well.

Uncle Scoopey when CE had it was the best. That used to get some great conversions.

True Celebs has a really hot looking tour. Might try them some more.

Thing is with such a few Celeb sponsors anymore most surfers have been previously pitched on almost every sponsor. Even type in surfers. Time is not a salesman's friend. You cant keep promoting the same old stuff forever.

[Nickatilynx]

Catman ,

Some people were easily doing $10,000 a day some a lot more sales on Paris Hilton when it came out.

I suspect one of the main sellers grossed maybe 450,000 a day... on a good day.

and I'm siding on the conservative side.

cj , and others may have more accurate figures but I know from our own experience it WAS the most lucrative porn to send hits to for a good while.



Last edited by Nickatilynx at Apr 1 2004, 08:51 PM

[JR]

Originally posted by Nickatilynx@Apr 1 2004, 08:50 PM
Catman ,

Some people were easily doing $10,000 a day some a lot more sales on Paris Hilton when it came out.

I suspect one of the main sellers grossed maybe 450,000 a day... on a good day.

and I'm siding on the conservative side.

cj , and others may have more accurate figures but I know from our own experience it WAS the most lucrative porn to send hits to for a good while.

do you watch The Apprentice?

notice that the final players are the ones who accept responsibility and hold themsevles accountable and the early players that were fired were all pretty much blaming, finger pointing and took no responsibility for themselves or their actions and decisions?

i love that show. there is so much to learn from them.

[cj]

Originally posted by Catman@Apr 1 2004, 11:40 PM
CJ, I tried sending them to a couple of the remaining major Celebrity sponsors and they just did't seem to convert that well. Not like they used to. I dont have a ton of celeb type ins so maybe I didnt give it a long enough shot to average out.

I also tried sending them to that sponsor prog that promoted her video. I couldn't get anyone to buy. They would download but who's gonna pay $50 to view something like 5 times. I think it was marketed poorly. Should of gave surfers a permanent copy for say 10 bucks and gave partners say $3 to $5. 5 years ago it might have done better. But maybe others did better.

I found the best thing is sending them to the free zines. They converted well. But lately they are waning a bit too. Celeb seems to still be worth at least 1 cent a type in with the zines so I'll stick to them for now. But that also seems to be dropping like a rock the last month or so.

Mr Skin has a real nice tour now days. I could prob get better than 1 cent with them. But I'm not a fan of CCBill. I cant seem to recur with them that well.

Uncle Scoopey when CE had it was the best. That used to get some great conversions.

True Celebs has a really hot looking tour. Might try them some more.

Thing is with such a few Celeb sponsors anymore most surfers have been previously pitched on almost every sponsor. Even type in surfers. Time is not a salesman's friend. You cant keep promoting the same old stuff forever.

Catman, I'm surprised by your Paris results - everyone i've spoken to has said the opposite. 7000 joins per day for a month is a number i've heard thrown around a lot ... and those who were buying it were paying up to $250 or thereabouts ...

I wonder why you had such different results. Its definately not doing as well now, but there's only so much milk in the cow!

Re your other celeb traffic, you dropped back just in time! oprano radio next tuesday is a special celebrity sites show & i'm launching a new affiliate program!

Hit me up on icq (if you still use it!) ;-) 3422430

[gonzo]

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