Amazon has just released a new digital storage service called the Amazon Cloud Drive, alongside a new Amazon Cloud Player for Web and Amazon Cloud Player for Android. The Cloud Drive gives any one who signs up 5GB of free storage to upload your digital music library, and that gets bumped up to 20GB if you simply buy one MP3 album from Amazon.

Get more info on this new service at www.amazon.com/clouddrive

Have you heard of the latest social media site? Its called Color, it officially launched last week  and is being branded as *the* new photo-based social media for mobile users.

Their announcement gave a brief description of their service:

Color is a product of Sequoia Capital, which is known for helping prop up a number of big internet players in the last couple of decades, like Apple, Google, Oracle, PayPal, YouTube, LinkedIn, Cisco, NVIDIA, Yahoo, Kayak, Zappos, Electronic Arts, Atari, etc… They invested over $41 Million in Color and believe it will be the next big Facebook!

Color sounds like its made for people with short attention spans, like me! I went to the site on my PC and found only links to download the app. Wow, that’s all I can do? Its lost my attention already…..

I often receive member emails asking for  models “Victoria or Lola to please spread it for the camera” or wondering “why won’t Kirsty take her bottoms off”. Unfortunately my answer is always the same. “These models will not get explicit, but we are still incredibly lucky to have them.”

In very general terms the more beautiful a model is the more money she can demand for a shoot. And. The more explicit a model gets, the more money she can demand for a shoot. When you do the math this of course means that less attractive models need to get more explicit to make the same money as a beautiful models. There are exceptions to this of course, you will occasionally see a very beautiful models getting really nasty … but not usually. Take a quick look at your typical fisting site, now check out Met-art. The girls and what they are doing are miles apart but their pay for the day is probably quite similar.

So what is the right balance? What do consumers really look for, beauty or explicit action. The good news is that consumers come in all flavors. Met-art is huge because people love beauty, hardcore is the largest niche because people love sex. And for those who want it all – don’t forget about The Life Erotic.

Let me start by explaining what can be gained by taking a photo in black and white. On the surface it makes no sense. We see in colour, black and white movies and tv’s are generally considered old fashioned and technically inferior. Even our newspapers are in colour now. Why look at something with only 3 things, black, white and grey when instead we could be enjoying it in it’s natural state – limitless shades of colour?

The answer is “emotional impact”. When an artist takes a photo he is trying to convey an emotion or feeling. He has numerous tools at his disposal by which to achieve this. His model and her skill, lighting, location, setting and props, hair and makeup, equipment, post shoot editing etc…. . One of these is colour or the lack of colour. A black and white (and sepia) photo is by it’s nature “stark”. An over powering element “colour” is absent. This allows the viewer to focus more easily on the other elements of  the shoot and gives the photographer a better chance of conveying his intended emotion.

Have a look at these samples. Imagine them in colour, it’s easy to understand how colour could be a distraction and block the full emotional impact of the image

Melancholy

Intensity

A lost soul

Unbridled sexuality

Purity

Confidence and power

On the edge

So if we accept that black and white photos have some value – how should we use them. First thing to understand is that they simply DO NOT get the same attention and clicks that a good colour photo does. Anybody who has ever owned a tgp or blog knows that no matter how hard they try, no matter how many beautiful black and white or sepia thumbnails and sets you put up, their performance will always underwhelm you. So… why bother… .

Think bigger, the occasional black and white set may not sell as well as the colour ones but it gives your site depth, drama and texture. A fuller more significant feel. It sets it apart from the other sites. The consumers that do see them will be impacted by them and remember you over your competitor. Black and white, used sparingly, may not help your site that day, but over all, and in the long run you should make more money.

There are lots of great sponsors offering black and white galleries – give them a try.

The Life Erotic is one of them!

A new iPhone app that aims to help people find “freedom from homosexuality” is getting Apple in hot water, leading to them being severely criticized for allowing such an app in their online store.

The app is the work of the Exodus International ministry, which claims to be “the world’s largest ministry to individuals and families impacted by homosexuality”. On its site, Exodus states that it “upholds heterosexuality as God’s creative intent for humanity, and subsequently views homosexual expression as outside of God’s will”.

A petition has been launched by Truth Wins Out, asking Steve Jobs to intervene to remove the app! So far, its attracted 130,000 signatures. And the media is supporting T.W.O.’s efforts through newspaper articles, news television features and more. Follow the news progress and sign the petition demanding that Apple remove this app from their store at this URL: http://www.change.org/petitions/demand-that-apple-remove-ex-gay-iphone-app

Crossdressing is probably still one of the least well known niches in adult and is small enough that it might be better classified as a micro niche. For the brave webmaster, however, crossdressing can be quite profitable. First off, it is very under-represented which means you’re more likely to be providing your surfers with content that they’ve never seen anywhere else. Second, crossdressing is a growing niche – recent mainstream media coverage of transgender issues and an increase in companies using crossdressing and gender role reversal in advertising is dramatically improving public awareness and interest in crossdressing. Third, crossdressing content grabs the surfer’s attention the way images from more extreme niches do, without the risk of violating obscenity laws.

So are you interested in trying to sell crossdressing content but don’t know where to start? Mix a little in with the niches you currently promote. One of the great things about crossdresser porn is that you can usually find a crossdressing version of any mainstream niche. Have a pantyhose site? Try throwing in some crossdressers in pantyhose. Promote cumshots? Latex? Group sex? You can find crossdressing content for all of them. Yes, there are even milf crossdressers. Actually, about the only thing you probably won’t be able to find is big boob crossdressers

I’m not saying that crossdressing will appeal to all of your surfers. But you might be surprised at how many clicks you get. Plus, crossdresser models and photographers typically know the niche they are trying to portray very well, especially any sort of clothing fetish. If nothing else a crossdressing image on your site is likely to catch the surfer’s attention – it can really make a difference in hooking a surfer during those critical first few seconds and convincing them to browse your page . . . even if they don’t ultimately click through on any of the crossdressing photos. With the glut of porn out there right now, it pays to have something unique at the top of your page.

Of course if you now find yourself searching for crossdressing programs to promote, be sure to stop by TheCrossdresser.com and sign up I’m always looking for new affiliates, and I’m happy to provide custom content no matter what your niche.

A pretty girl in a gossamer dress frolicking in the forest. (no, that’s called softcore)
I can’t define it… but I know it when I see it… . (try again)
Webcam video of me and my roommate reading poetry in the nude. (ummm. probably not)

So what then…

Most niche categories are pretty easy to define and have well established borders. We can easily imagine foot fetish images, gay content, pregnant content, even broad categories like amateur. But erotic photography is different. It means different things to different people. It crosses over into other niches. I have seen some really beautiful gay, fetish, pornstar, even POV erotic photography. It changes and evolves with trends in beauty, fashion and technology. Are implants still beautiful and erotic? Does big hair and make up still impress? What about HD video, without it are the scenes really high quality enough to matter?
Probably no on all counts.

So if erotic photography is largely subjective, reaches across virtually all genres, and is continually evolving, how do we define it and more importantly how can we capitalize on it?

Not to worry – define it with two words. Quality and Innovation. Now apply these two words to your favorite niche and you likely have Erotic Photography. So in truth Erotic Photography is not a niche at all, but more a philosophy, a methodology. Something that can, and should, be applied to anything you are promoting.

When you think about erotic photography drop your pre-conceived ideas, think outside the box and start pushing the boundaries of your chosen niche. If you are a photographer get creative and try something new. If you are an affiliate search harder for content that is truly innovative, truly Erotic Photography. Your consumers will love it, you will make more money, and you will be contributing something positive to the current glut of hum drum content we are currently all buried beneath.

Ever asked yourself whether you should offer non-rebilling signup options, or what the right price point for your site is? I’ve done a good bit of experimenting in this area so thought I’d share my perspective. Of course every site is unique, so I definitely recommend testing this for yourself . . . I’ll show you how easy it can be using Google’s Website Optimizer. And to give credit where it’s due, this post was inspired by a thread over at SponsorChat. So for additional perspective check out this rebilling thread.

Rebills are what made online porn famous, though perhaps for the wrong reasons. Nonetheless, legitimate rebills can still account for a sizeable portion of your income, and it makes good business sense – it’s easier to keep a customer than to find a new one. So why offer a non-rebilling signup option at all you ask? There are a growing number of porn surfers who are uncomfortable with online subscriptions – maybe they’ve had their credit card banged by a less than honest site, or maybe they’ve just read someone else’s horror stories. And some surfers just know better than to trust themselves to cancel a recurring subscription. Whatever the reason, you don’t want to lose these surfers – based on my own experience at TheCrossdresser.com many of them simply won’t sign up if you don’t offer a non-recurring billing option.

Non-rebilling signups should never outweigh your rebilling signups. If they do, you are throwing away money by making it too easy for customers to opt out of the rebill. Consider your non-rebilling option a premium service. The market will support a certain upcharge for such a premium service, and you should strive to strike a balance between not losing customers who will only sign up if offered a non-rebilling option, and cannibalizing your far more lucrative rebilling signups. I’ve personally found that the best setup is to offer non-rebilling options only for multi-month signups (maybe 3 months for example). Offer the customer a discount (you are afterall guaranteeing yourself a 3 month sale here), but still make sure you aren’t eating in to your typical rebilling margins (if most people rebill for 4 months anyway, you don’t want to offer a discount 3 month option!). Your other option is to offer single month signups at a premium price point.

Setting price points for non-rebilling signups should be done the same way you set price points for your rebilling signups – by testing! Survey other porn sites in your niche and find out what they’re charging. Set up a base price structure that’s similar (after all there are other smart webmasters out there ), and then set up some options where you charge $5 more per month and $5 less per month. Find out which options give you the most sales, both in total dollars as well as in sales volume (you of course have to decide which if the best metric for your wallet at the end of the day). You might be surprised with the results – I get more sales at a higher price point than I do at a lower price point. If you don’t charge enough for your site, people assume that the quality is crap. Run this test for a couple months though – if you find your rebills falling off at the higher price point, it may be that your content really *is* crap and you can’t justify the higher price point

So I’ve talked a lot about testing in this article, but how do you do it? Google’s Website Optimizer makes it really simple actually. First start by setting up your different billing options in your biller’s admin panel. Most billers will let you set up different billing “profiles”, and then you just reference the correct profile on your join page. Make a copy of your Join page and save it with a new name. Point the reference to one of your new billing profiles. Repeat this for each profile you want to test. Resist the temptation to make any changes to the Join pages other than the billing profile – you want to test the price points and options, not which photo sells better or background color sells better.

Now that you have your Join pages set up, go to Google’s Website Optimizer – one of the tools available from Google’s Webmaster Tools. It’s free, so if you haven’t signed up for these you really should. Select the A/B experiment option – this is by far the easiest (and actually gives you more control, even though Google implies that the Multivariate experiment is somehow better or more advanced). Google will lead you step by step through the process of setting up the experiment, but basically you just add a bit of tracking code to the beginning of each of your Join pages, and then a bit of code to the end of your “success” page – ie somewhere the surfer ends up if they successfully complete a signup. That’s it. Just tell Google which pages you’ve put the tracking code on, and it will start dividing your traffic between the pages and tracking the results for you.

Errors happen. With all the web pages being loaded every second on the internet, it is no surprise that sometimes a page will not load and an error page pops up.

We all know the pages. 400, 401, 403, 404, 500. What they mean at this point really doesn’t matter. What matters is what happens to the surfer when he reaches one.

The standard error pages say that the page will not load, and gives a couple of possible reasons why and is pretty much standard. About the only thing positive on the page is that it suggests (as a last resort) going back and trying to reload again. Most surfers go from an error page to somewhere else and NOT back to the original error page.

What most webmasters do not know is that all the error pages are usually located on their own servers and do NOT have to be the standard version. You can easily use error pages to guide the surfer to another of your sites.

My 404 Page is an example of a redone error page. I try maximize the potential of an error page, I give the surfers options to stay within the network of sites I run. Here is my error page

It is a comfort to look at traffic stats and see referrers listed as 400, 401, 403, 404 or 500. Each one means another surfer who got saved from the horrible fate of clicking off of my sites.

Errors and error pages are part of the game. You should be using them totally to your benefit in my opinion.

Hello all!

Shaun here, owner, operator, and all around nice guy from  The Life Erotic . I will be managing the Erotic Photography section here on Ultra Webmasters and look forward to opening your mind to all of the great things this often overlooked niche can do for your business. I’ll share advice, insights, tips, trials and tribulations. Great info for those already promoting Erotic Photography, even better for those who are not –  but maybe could be. So bookmark this site, grab the RSS URL and keep connected with Erotic Photography Webmastering on UltraWebmasters.com!

The transgender niche in general is a bit of a complicated world, and unlike promoting big boob or pantyhose porn if you classify a transgender model with the wrong name you’ve probably just lost a sale. So you might as well start off right and learn the terminology. Besides, this is the most common question I get from other webmasters, so now I can just direct everyone to this post

First off, the transgender community and the porn world don’t always see eye to eye on nomenclature, so I’ll of course focus on names as they are used in the adult entertainment industry. Expect to hear from the occasional irate surfer who was looking for a new transgender support forum, but if you follow this guide you shouldn’t be offending any models or potential members. Generically, transgender adult models are referred to as tgirls or gurls. These are fairly polite terms and safe to use in casual conversation. Transgenders in the adult industry largely fall in to two categories: those with boobs, and those without.

If the model has boobs she is a shemale or tranny. Note the pronoun “she”, this is important. Also note that if you call a transgender on the street a tranny you will get slapped An Asian tranny would typically be called a ladyboy – this term is a translation of an actual culturally accepted gender role in Thailand. Ladyboys usually have small boobs which may lead you to wonder why they fit in the “with boobs” category. The truth is that with the exception of some full-time professional models, most shemales are saving up for sex-reassignment surgery (and thus they have boobs, are taking hormones, etc). In any event, the intent of this person is to live full time as a female, boobs are usually just the most obvious sign of this. Probably not a good idea to tell Joe Surfer that his favorite tranny model will be getting her cock chopped off soon though!

A tgirl without boobs is a crossdresser or transvestite. These terms have different cultural connotations (particularly Europe vs the US) so I won’t go in to details. Either is suitable. Some crossdressers intend to get boobs eventually, but many (like me!) are happy to keep their biological gender and just dress up like a female. In spite of this, crossdressers should still be referred to as “she”. Kind of like the way you would refer to an actor by the name of his character in a movie. Crossdressers come in two major varieties – those that try to look like a female (effectively the girl-next-door or amateur equivalent of a shemale), and those who like to be (forced to) dressed up but probably still look a bit like a guy in a dress. The later are usually called sissies or panty-boys and the use of the female pronoun is intended to be derogatory, whereas for the former type of crossdresser it’s more a sign of respect.

Ok, maybe more than you ever wanted to know about what shemales and crossdressers call themselves (or maybe not? if you want more information about crossdressers outside of porn, see this article). But the key points are:

• - Shemales, crossdressers, and any sub variety you can think of should be referred to as female
• - The term ladyboy only refers to Asian shemales
• - Never call a model with boobs a crossdresser (if you call a crossdresser a shemale or tranny there is a 50% chance you’ll get away with it as a compliment)
• - If you’re not sure, tgirl is probably a safe alternative . . . though search volumes for tgirl are pretty low
• - Surfers who are in to this niche know these names well, so use them correctly

BBC reported yesterday that from 25 May 2011, new EU directives come into effect which say that “explicit consent” is required when tracking users via cookies.  The new rules come from the European e-Privacy directive, and attemps to deal with behavioural advertising.

Behavioural advertising is mainly done by large advertising companies, where they track your surfing behaviour from one site to the next, eventually building up a profile and using that info to display ads on new sites based on your previous surfing habits. Just think about how many sites use AdWords, and how the AdWord servers can collect and easily compile info on your surfing habits if it chooses.

I think this is a great new law, but of course like every other internet law, I really don’t see how they will be able to enforce it other than big lawsuits against well known companies after the fact. But if your company is not located or branched in the EU, then what can they do? 

We have been having a discussion on GayWideWebmasters as to how this new law will affect adult affiliate tracking cookies. In my opinion, affiliate cookies are not being used for behavioural tracking, they are simply being used to store cart information, which is specifically excluded in these new rules. However, this is my opinion which really makes no difference on how the EU will implement its new anti-tracking directives.

So what happens if all the sudden using cookies with EU surfers are blocked? I know that NATS triple-tracks, via cookies as well as IP address and sessions. However, we are still waiting for information on how CCBill, Epoch and others track. Here is a direct link to this thread if you are interested in following it: http://forums.gaywidewebmasters.com/showthread.php?t=35900

For bloggers, a few thinsg about customizing blog templates. namely “variables” and “Tags.”

They are almost magical if you arn’t used to them but they wil let you make your blog template all yours with a look and a feel that is unique.

Variables begin with . They can be used to output various bits of content on your weblog. For example, placing in your template will output the title of your weblog. Tags begin with <> and end with . Any content between them is modified in some way, or looped over and outputted multiple times. For example, placing in your template will display the title of each of your entries.

Today we will look at common variables. If you are using some that are not on the list please post them so that others may play around with them.

Variables List
- Weblog title and current page title.
- Weblog title.
- Weblog description.
- Weblog owner’s avatar URL.
- Weblog owner’s email address.
- The blog’s calendar.
- Weblog’s main page URL.
- Weblog owner’s profile URL.
- Weblog’s archive page URL.
- Weblog’s friends page URL.
- Weblog’s RSS feed URL.
- Photo Album URL
- Podcast Feed URL
- Contents only display on the main page.
- Contents only display on the view entry page.
- Contents will only display on the archive page.
- Weblog’s archive list.
- Contents will only display on the friends page.
- Displays your weblog’s custom links.
- Link title.
- Link URL.
- Displays your list of friends.
- Friend’s username.
- Friend’s weblog URL.
- Displays the list of members for this weblog.
- Member’s username.
- Member’s profile URL.
- Displays this weblog’s entry categories.
- Category name.
- Category URL.
- Displays a list of your recent entries.
- Recent Entry’s title.
- Recent Entry’s date.
- Recent Entry’s time.
- Displays this weblog’s entries.
- Entry title.
- Author’s username.
- Author’s avatar URL.
- Author’s profile URL.
- Entry date.
- Entry time.
- Entry main content.
- Entry permanent URL.
- Entry “Send This Link” URL.
- Contents will only display if the administrator has enabled entry categories.
- Entry category.
- Contents will only display if comments are allowed on this entry.
- Contents will only display if the viewer is allowed to post comments on this entry.
- “Post Comment” URL.
- Number of comments on this entry.
- Displays the comments on this entry.
- Edit Comment link.
- Delete Comment link.
- Comment title.
- Comment’s author username/nickname.
- Comment’s author avatar.
- Comment’s author IP address.
- Comment date.
- Comment time.
- Comment’s main content.
- Comment’s permanent URL.
- Contents will only display if trackbacks are allowed on this entry.
- Entry’s trackback URL.
- Total number of trackbacks on this entry.
- The RDF trackback metadata for this entry.
- Displays the trackbacks on this entry.
- Delete Trackback link.
- The sender’s weblog name for this trackback.
- The sender’s weblog URL for this trackback.
- Trackback title.
- Trackback content.
- Trackback date.
- Trackback time.
- Contents will only display if the weblog has more than one page.
- Links the contents to the previous page URL.
- Links the contents to the next page URL.
- The current page number.
- The total number of pages.

Do you know what it really costs to run your online porn business? A lot of webmasters do not and they are the ones that never seem to be able to break from the “occasional sale every few months” group into the “where are my sales today?” group.

It’s called SBP–Standard Business Perception. Any business has cost rules and the internet is no exception. Let’s say you own 1 site or blog on one domain. What are your yearly operating costs?

The domain itself. Depending on where you register the name at you are looking at 7.99 to 10.99 a year for the name. Let’s assume you go the cheap route.

Privacy registration. It usually costs anywhere from 5.00 to 15.00 a year to cloak your identity. Not everyone needs this but if you are one of those people who don’t want to risk someone looking up dirtynastysex.com and finding you as the owner it is necessary. Again–assume you go the least expensive.

Hosting. You have to have that domain somewhere. Plans can run from 6.99 a month to 29.99 a month depending on your needs. Again–we will assume your needs are met by the lower price. That’s 83.88 a year for hosting.

So your obvious costs, domain, privacy and hosting are going to run you 96.87 a year.

But you have to consider the incidental costs as well.

Your internet connection. Sure–you would likely have the internet anyway but you have to look at it as a cost since you are using it to conduct business. Average highspeed broadband connection is 49.95 a month. You have to assume that 1/2 of that is the responsibility of your business. That’s 24.98 a month ( 299.76 a year).

Your time. The arguement is always that you would be doing nothing if you were not doing this but that does not play. You are doing this to make money. If you were working a part time job to make money you would be making miminum wage. You have to value the time you spend doing this at the same rate. I don’t know about where you live but here the miminum wage is 7.00 an hour. Let’s assume you spend 5 hours working on your site a week. That’s 35.00 worth of your time that you have invested. That’s 1820.00 a year.

Incidental costs are therefore 2119.76 a year.

Finally non-fixed costs. Namely taxes. Tax rates vary from state to state and depend on total income but let’s assume the lowest bracket will be in play. That is 10%. Since the average “part-time” webmaster makes 2 sales a month and averages 15.00 per sale that is 360.00 a year in sales. Tax liability would be 36.00.

It actually costs you to run that one site on that one domain: 96.87, 2119.76, and 36.00. That is 2252.63 a year operating costs. That breaks down to 187.72 a month. The more important figure for budgeting and planning is the operating cost per day based on a yearly projection. That is 6.18.

That is the amount you need to generate per day to cover your costs. It averages out to one sale at 15.00 every two days (approx).

Of course everyone’s figures will be different. Some will be higher some lower. The average wage where you live can affect the number greatly. But the example above will be damn close for the US webmaster. If you live in the US and you are not making 200.00 in generated income a month you are losing money. Use the little form below to calculate your true cost of operation.

Spent yearly on domains:____________
Spent yearly on privacy:_____________
Spent yearly on hosting:_____________
1/2 your yearly internet cost:__________
Hours worked X average local wage:_________
Estimated taxes:____________________

Hey guys (and girls, shemales, crossdressers, and other transgenders). I’m Katie-Ann, transgender model and webmistress over at TheCrossdresser.com. I’ll be managing the Crossdressing Webmasters area here at UltraWebmasters, providing my tips and experiences running and promoting crossdresser porn sites.  Lots of the same advice will also apply to tranny webmasters, though there are some definite differences. You’ll also probably notice that TheCrossdresser.com is an amateur model paysite… so hopefully those of you who are running or promoting amateur sites, and really anybody running a paysite will also find at least some of these posts worth reading.

I realize crossdressing by itself may be a pretty small niche… but there are quite a few parallels with other niches, and you might also be surprised by how well crossdressing content sells when mixed in with other more mainstream porn. So stick around and see what you can learn from a crossdresser – you just might find yourself with a new niche to promote Oh, and of course be sure to bookmark UltraWebmasters or add the RSS feed to stay up to date on all the other niche-specific and general webmastering topics!

Hey, all,

I am Luke, owner of three gay webmaster affiliate programs and I will be heading up the Gay Webmastering section of this site. I will be writing articles that will help webmasters who are marketing gay adult sites, plus will pop some general info up to help all webmasters. So bookmark this site, grab the RSS URL and keep connected with Gay Webmastering on UltraWebmasters.com!

The one and only Dokk is back after five years!
read all about it HERE

I hate seeing sites go offlline because the domain was not paid for on time. It happens all the time, recently a major program went offline for a few days until the owner took care of it. When a domain expires for non-payment registrars give you a grace period to renew it, but then they park the domain, so you have to wait for the dns to change and get your site back live.

The trick is to have one email address that you can check for all your domains registrations, keep life simple.

I don’t believe in using a seperate email address for each domain, it leads to trouble, you might forget the check each email on a regular basis.

The other tip is to put your most valuable domains on auto renewal. That way the registrar will automatically charge your credit card on file with them, when the time comes to renew.

TheButcher from SponsorChat.com has taken over UltraWebmasters.com

Thank you to all those who have visited this fine resource over time, and hope to carry on seeing you here in the future.

For any questions, comments or advertising opportunities please use the “Contact” form in the upper right. For you PR fiends the site is PR4 and there are top and bottom banners available across the site.

TheButcher