Needed - "Bonus content" - Feeds/Programs?

[Master D]

I'm going to be launching a site in january and want to offer bonus material to members. I dont know very much about this area and I'm hoping someone can steer me in the right direction.

I have a decent amount of my exclusive content (about 50 episodes/girls) but I don't feel its enough for the site to stand alone without extras.

I've heard I can buy "feeds" as bonus content but dont know how that works or where to find these kinds of programs?

I'd like to have actuall bonus sites, are there companies offering this sort of thing and do I pay monthly or ....?

advise, info, and possible links to providers of this sort of thing would be much appreciated!

Here's the site -

http://www.absoluteamateurgirls.com/

[Titmowse]

Oh my. There are feeds and plugins galore to choose from. It's all about what you want and what you can afford. You can get started by looking here

[buzz]

Hey Master D

Have you ever thought about mixingyour excluisve stuff with some nice non-exclusive?
Or maybe creating a separate section of your site w/ non-exclusive?

[Hammer]

I'm with Buzz. Feeds suck for the most part, IMO. I would buy a bunch of non-exclusive content that matches your niche. I would launch the site with 20 to 30 videos and load up a bunch of non exclusive stuff into a "bonus" area. That way you'll have plenty of exclusive videos for updates. If you update your site once a week with an exclusive video and a couple cheap non exclusives you should be able to keep your members happy and rebilling. Of course that all depends on how good your content is.

[Master D]

That's very good information guys and yes I will consider anything that is effective and affordable.

It just seemed easier to link to several "Bonus Sites" so i don't have to manage much on the bonus end. I have my hands full with my own content production

It may seem odd but I'm not a really big porn surfer, at least not these days but it seems like most decent sites offer x number of "Bonus Sites" and once you're a member you just link over to them... easy peasy. that way i don't have to deal with bonus content hassles.

I realize that some of the big corporate sites have multiple sites and that's their network or you join one and get the rest for free but then there's other relatively small sites that offer 5-10-20 bonus sites that you know they don't own but it's some sort of program they've worked out with a provider. That's what I'm interested in and trying to learn about.

Here's a good example of a single girl site that looks like she has a good bonus section - http://hotwiferio.com/new/bonus.shtml

What are your thoughts on that? looks simple enough and like it would be good for members. Of course the cost of anything I decide to go with will be a major factor, especially in the beginning. I will obviously be looking into this but in the mean time what kind of monthly costs do you think i will be looking at if i had say 500 members, ballpark?

Any further info or advise will be very much appreciated. I've been so tied up with everything it takes to get this project ready over the last year I never looked into this area and obviously I'm fairly clueless. This is the last thing I need to get worked out before we open in a month or so.

[buzz]

webmastercentral.com
allmightycontent.com

these are feed providers coming to my mind at the moment

[Master D]

thanx buzz, i'll take a look.

[ronaldo]

I may be making a mistake posting in a thread with Hammer. Might not be efficient time wise. Being that I rep a feeds provider you may think I'm biased, but I'm not. I'm brutally honest. Often at my own expense.

There are MANY factors to consider when looking at leasing video feeds.

First off, if you have a ton of GOOD exclusive material with lots of updates in the can and the resources to keep shooting on a regular basis, you may not need any extra content. Especially if, as you say, you get a "Network" of sites going. THAT can then be offered as your "Bonus" content.

That being said, I disagree with Hammer when he says you should stick to content in your niche. Looking at your site, you seem to have a variety of softcore and hardcore all in the amateur niche. That's already a good start imo. You're already offering more than just sites that produce softcore content. If a surfer joins a softcore site for example, there IS going to be a day when they're going to want to whack to something harder. Why not offer that? If you do, they may never have to leave your site. If you DON'T, they MAY leave your site, find something better, and you've lost a member. That is exactly what feeds are meant to do...increase retention.

Here's a little story that cracks me up every time. About 3 years ago I had a new client hit me up and tell me he was concerned about how much usage he was getting to our feeds. I took a look for him and told him that his members were hitting the gay feeds HARD. Almost 50% of his usage was coming from the gay feeds we had and we only had 4 compared to 16 straight ones (I was with a different provider at the time). He told me he'd get back to me. The next day he hit me up and said the problem had been fixed. I looked at his account and sure enough, the gay feeds usage had stopped altogether. I asked him if he removed the gay feeds. He told ME that the gay feeds were NEVER supposed to be added because the site they were using them on was a STRAIGHT site.

So, a LOT of his members joined that site to see STRAIGHT content, but when GAY content was made available, they were curious enough to look. I guarantee some of them were getting that content somewhere else if they didn't provide it.

I'm a sick puppy. I LOVE fisting lesbians. But if I joined a site for that, I KNOW that there's gonna be times I'm gonna want to watch some petite coed getting railed by 4 hung black dudes. If the site offers it, I've already paid for it, I'm not going anywhere else.

Both purchasing videos and leasing them have their advantages and disadvantages. As simple as I can possibly put it...

-With leased feeds, you're paying a monthly fee to access immediately thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in already produced content that will be updated regularly and hosted for you.

-With purchased content, you OWN the rights to as much content as you care to provide.

One does seem more cost effective and it can be, but make no mistake, the effort and cost doesn't end once you complete the sale. You have to edit it and/or watermark it and you still have the hosting costs associated with it. (That's my biased statement for this thread)

The best route in my opinion is to start out with the content you have and lease from one or two providers. You should still be producing your own content AND if feasible, purchasing the rights to some non-exclusive content as well. Over time, as the content on your site grows, you may be able to phase out some of the feeds and lower your monthly expenses. You may find at that time the cost is worth it strictly for retention purposes however.

If you'd like to discuss it further and more at length, you can hit me up on icq-272000271, email- ron@webmasterparadise or phone- 204-480-0588. As I said, I'm brutally honest and will even point out other providers that may better suit your needs. I'd rather see you succeed and gain your trust and a potentially long term client and/or associate than take your money and have you fail in 3 months time.

[Master D]

Excellent, ronaldo! That really helps! This is exactly the kind of info i needed! I'll hit you up sometime today. Probably call as i have allot of questions.

I'm starting to think leasing feeds might be my best bet to start off as i really don't need anymore editing work and website design at this point, I'm swamped as it is.

Talk to ya soon and thanks for your time.

Darryn

[Hammer]

I don't really know much about Webmaster Paradise but I can tell you that Ron is a great guy and if he says something is good, you can believe him.

[ronaldo]

Originally posted by Hammer
I don't really know much about Webmaster Paradise but I can tell you the Ron is a great guy and if he says something is good, you can believe him.

Thanks Hammer.

[Master D]

Absolutely! Ron went out of his way to help me and totally hooked me up! He spent the time to really get me up to speed on bonus content and more.

Thanks also to Hammer and others that commented and took my emails and/or calls. Time is valuable and I appreciate you giving me some of it!

MD

[Cozy Monica]

I've been inside a LOT of paysites, and I can tell you that 50 exclusive episodes is FANTASTIC.

You could probably start your site with ten to twenty already in the member's area if you have your bonus content set up, and add a new episode each week.

Of course I said that's with bonus content. I'm personally the kind of person that isn't too keen on feeds. As a surfer, I dislike all the fiddling around because some don't work with certain software/browsers, and you get some 404s and then you kind of have to really look around to find content that suits your particular mood, etc. etc. etc.

However, there are probably lots of surfers out there that REALLY enjoy feeds.

I think if you have the time though, adding non-exclusive photo and video content is a very good idea for augmenting the amount of updates you do, and cutting costs.

[Lana]

No disrespect Ronaldo but you just sent me back an email with a password letting me into your showroom.
I immediedly went down to the lingerie section and it wasn't much different than it was when I was surfing other sites with lingerie feeds back when I was investigating bonus sites on other sites when I was starting.
I've joined tons of sites to learn and hit the bonus section and seen the same old thing.
Not only that but the quality is terrible. I've got a choice of 14 feeds and the first 5 are 1 girl in a really bad set just standing there, Who are these girls? The next ones aren't any better.
I haven't checked the whole site out but what I've seen is pretty much old hat.
When a surfer clicks on your bonus content he's going to say - "Oh this, I've seen it before"
Good product but maybe jazz it up a little with vids at a higher frame rate and a new template.
Sorry, but it's old news.

[ronaldo]

No offense taken Lana. I don't think you'll find anywhere in this thread me pimping my feeds. I did nothing more than offer advice and my opinion to Master D.

I had a two hour discussion with him and spent MAYBE 5 minutes actually talking about MY product. We covered not only the pros and cons of BOTH leased and purchased content, but many other things as well.

The thing that I STRESSED to Master D the most was that HIS EXCLUSIVE content is where the value of his, or any site for that matter, ultimately lies. ANY extra content, be it purchased or leased isn't going to make or break your site. Ideally it's going to help your retention...nothing more, nothing less. I even told him that the ideal business model that doesn't have a lot of startup capital should work towards the day that ANY extra content is negligible.

The one thing that I really disagree with, and I hate agreeing with Paul Markham here, is that your members will look at our, or again, ANY extra content, and think, "Oh this, I've seen it before". You and I and a lot of people in this industry have most certainly seen more than our share of adult material so will quite possibly come across things we've seen before. The average surfer however probably won't. Even if he does, so long as it's not the focus of your site and the reason he joined, meaning YOUR exclusive content, your site shouldn't suffer.

I'm the first person to suggest alternate providers when someone feels ours won't suffice. I'm not sure if I did with Master D or not though to be honest, because we spent so little time talking about feeds. As for something else that YOU might use, I'm honestly at a loss. I'm not exceptionally familiar with the lingerie niche and most of the providers I know of don't really offer anything like I see on the tour of your site. If you are seriously looking for feeds, I'd suggest you look at Webmaster Central or WorldWideFeeds. They may have something you could use, but I'm not positive either.

As for our products, we actually are revamping the entire product and have a brand new release coming in the middle of January.

[ronaldo]

Originally posted by Cozy Monica
then you kind of have to really look around to find content that suits your particular mood, etc. etc. etc.

This is a very important statement you make.

Like the example I posted above, JUST because someone joins a lesbian site, DOESN'T mean ALL they EVER want to watch is lesbian material.

Their MOOD is going to change and I believe you're much better served to offer that content through extra content, thus allowing you to focus on your main content, so that the member doesn't go looking elsewhere to satisfy their mood for the day.

[Master D]

What Ron said.................

Very savvy guy

However, I appreciate everyones comments.

MD