From the information posted on SponsorChat tonight, it looks like manwin has either snapped up webcams.com or both companies have the same owners listed on their pages.

Alamea Holding Ltd
Cordiacon Developments limited
Ahava Incorporated

Interesting, I’ll be asking questions about this in the next days to come and update this post when I know more.

According to a thread started by Shap on GFY today, he has sold Gaytube and Twistyscash to Manwin. Shap posts that he has not decided what he will do next.

Mawin have been acquiring a lot of tube sites and adult affiliate programs recently.

TMM has released their latest update to their NATS billing software. Vlad from Toomuchmedia posted this on the Board

Aditions to the billing script now include new features like the CSS Theme Builder, check it out at the official TMM website

According to this Huffingtonpost article, Google has set aside $500 Million in the event it needs to settle or pay any potential fine. Half a billion dollars is one huge sum of money, and one of the largest, if not the largest, fines any company has ever paid the government.

US law that prohibits selling pharmaceutical drugs without a physicians prescription, it’s a hotly debated issue, where people looking to save money buy drugs online.

I’ll be following this case and will report back when I find out more information.

Supposedly Vivid’s CEO Steve Hirsch has offered the future Queen of England’s sister, Pippa Middleton 5 Million dollars to do a single scene. this is so not going to happen, The British Royal family will never allow it. But it sure is a great pr stunt to say the least. It got me to post about it for one.

MSNBC reported earlier this week about a home in Buffalo NY that was raided by police who accused the owner of downloading thousands of child porn photos.

The raid happened in March, and after about a week, the police arrested a neighbor who was the real pedophile (case is still pending). The report goes on to cite other ‘horror stories’ that people got into for not securing their wifi. You can read the full report here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42740201/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/

Take this as a reminder that if you have wifi in your home, make sure its password protected and secured!!!

pornwikileaks the website that exposed the records for actors and actresses is in the spotlight of the adult world right now. People are asking questions and investigating the site.

Currently there is a lot of chat on SponsorChat.com on the subject. yesterday Mike South raised the tempo in the donnylongisaconvictedfelon thread that has evolved into the wikileaks discussion.

Mike wrote to Joe Brandi on the thread; ”

“so you are not actively participating on pornwikileaks.com

you didn’t have admin or owner status of any of donnys previous sites

and you were never in Thailand in the company of Donny Long

Are you saying that is all correct?”

To which Joe Brandi replied;

“that info is public record, all over the place not like you were trying to hide it.”

Dont be an asshole. I know its public record..so are alot of things….

“so you are not actively participating on pornwikileaks.com”

What part of the statement did you not understand? The part that said I have no idea what the fuck it is or the part that I said I have no idea what the fuck it is?

“you didn’t have admin or owner status of any of donnys previous sites”

What part of I dont know Donny Long except for a few emails back and fourth did you not understand? That part that I said I dont know Donny Long except for a few emails back and fourth or the part that I said I dont know Donny Long except for a few emails back and fourth ?

“and you were never in Thailand in the company of Donny Long”

Ok..seriously…you have to be a retarded monkey

Are you saying that is all correct?

No Einstein. Im saying everything I said is incorrect.

Is this what has happened since I left this industry? You have people asking moronic questions and accusations with no proof?

The discussion on the SC thread has become focused on what if anything Joe Brandi knows or has to do with the PWL site and it’s operators.

Mark Spiegler chimmed in on the discusion, writing:

Facebook has filled suit against Face Book of Sex a site run by parent company of AdultFriendFinder and Penthouse, namely FriendFinder  Networks.

The suit is asking for cancellation and transfer of some domains, $100,000 per domain plus punitive damages. They have 100 “John Does” they could name for linking to Face Book of Sex.

Another interesting case to watch.

This article in the HuffingtonPost claims that nearly one quarter of all 800 numbers in the US and Canada are owned by one company, namely PrimeTel Communications.

That’s more 800 numbers in their administration than AT&T and Verizon. It’s estimated the company has around 1.7 million 800  numbers.

Primetel Communications has offices in the same building as National A-1 Advertising.

Why would anyone want so many 800 numbers? Simply because 800 numbers are like domains, if you have a prime domain name, and someone wants it, you can sell it for some good money.

Get your update engines running, because this week Microsoft released its biggest number of bug fixes on “Patch Tuesday”.  Updates are being pushed out for all versions of Windows as well as Office.

For Windows, 17 patches will fix a whopping 64 holes. These include nine critical patches and eight important. Of the critical patches, five of them have the highest “exploitability index” rating of 1, meaning that the risk of attack is high and the impact of being pwned is also high. This month’s update is a record-breaker in the number of holes fixes, beating last December’s update of 17 patches that fixed 40 holes.

This update also fixes a number of critical issues with all versions of Office, and also includes two new software updates: the Rootkit Evasion Prevention tool and Office File Validation.

If you don’t have your updates set to auto, then make sure you run the Microsoft Update program this week to get all these fixes, updates and patches. Further info on this month’s updates is at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms11-apr.mspx

Long time Board member Big_D

Donnie Taylor Adamson, 28, of Louisville, died Thursday, April 7, 2011, at his residence. Confirmed by this newspaper article.

He will be missed.

I’m as guilty of forgetting this as the next webmaster, but there is only one reason a surfer in his right mind would sign up to a solo model site. With the glut of multi-girl updated daily flavor-of-the-minute never-get-bored porn sites out there, it just doesn’t make financial sense to sign up to a solo site. So why are solo sites still booming? They are selling the one fantasy that a multi-model site just can’t satisfy – the fantasy of a relationship.

You may not like it (especially if you’re the solo model), and your surfers probably won’t admit to it, but they’ve latched on to you because they think you’re something special. They’ve stopped caring about all those other girls and plunked down some hard earned cash to get closer to you. Maybe the relationship only lasts as long as a one month membership before they’re on to the next model. Or maybe it lasts for years like some of my admirers over at TheCrossdresser.com. Either way, Joe Surfer has a thing for you, and like a high school crush (albeit a rather kinky one) he’s going to need a bit of cajoling and teasing if you want to keep him around. After all, he’s probably seen every inch of your body on the tour already, and seeing you in new outfits and poses in high resolution is only going to keep him interested for a short time before he’s looking for a new fling.

Ok, so the real question here is how do you build a virtual relationship through a porn site. I’ll start by saying that you can take a few hints from Facebook and cam sites as the obvious examples of virtual relationships that you might want to emulate, but these are also somewhat complex. There are plenty of easy ways to develop a relationship with your members.

– Get rid of your professional designs and fancy graphics. Yes seriously. Time after time I run tests of professionally designed tours versus ugly blocky 90′s looking tours, and the ugly tours sell better. It’s more believable and authentic.

– Use first person in your text. You want Joe Surfer to believe that the model is running the site, whether she really is or not.

– Keep a blog or “diary” on the site. Include stuff completely (or mostly) unrelated to porn. Like what you had for dinner, or the shopping spree this weekend.

– Send personal emails to your members, especially when they contact you first. Write the responses like you’re the model, even if it’s a question about a lost password or a broken link.

– Always stay in character for all communications. If the tone of voice changes when a member asks a technical question, the fantasy is broken.

– Keep members involved. Get them to rate your photos or videos, post polls, ask them what *they* had for dinner. Do shoots by request if you can, and advertise it. Even surfers who don’t make a request will be turned on by the idea that you did a shoot by request.

If you really want to go to the next level, consider creating a porn site that is literally like a relationship. I’ve seen similar concepts on femdom sites for example, where members pay for a domme to tell them when they’re allowed to jerk off. If these sites sell memberships, certainly a porn site where members gain access to perks for developing their “relationship” with the model could work. Keep Joe Surfer active on your site earning relationship points by rating photos, sending virtual gifts, logging in every day, and keeping his membership active. Give him access to some hardcore photos in return for his good behavior. Develop some Flash sex games that give relationship points, keep a leader board of members. Let Joe Surfer redeem some of his relationship points for a private cam show. You get the idea.

Here’s hoping you and Joe Surfer have a long and rewarding relationship

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.

Looking for some fresh new gay content? How about some gay programs to promote? Well, look no further than the new GayWideWebmasters Adult Webmaster Resource Directory. Its your one stop where you can find current links to all things that will help you setup and run your own gay blogs, tubes, paysites and more!

Released just last week, the directory provides a central location for the entire adult industry to get information and links to all adult webmaster resources, including affiliate programs, business services, traffic providers, payment processors and all webmaster resources. All links were verified as active as of February 2011, so you won’t be wasting your time trying to check out sites that are no longer in business.

And if you need help, the Adult Webmaster Resource Directory also includes a handy blog that provides free articles and tutorials on loads of topics, like “Whats A Twink” or “Gay Adult Marketing 101“. Topics are not restricted to just the gay market either, they include all sorts of useful and interesting tips and tutorials.

Do you run a resource that may be of interest to Adult Webmasters? Then submit it for listing! The directory is updated every week with new listings, and will help your business get additional qualified traffic.

So don’t hesitate. If you are a newbie to the Gay market or a seasoned veteran, the new GayWideWebmasters Adult Webmaster Resource Directory will help you find the information and resources you need!