SexSwap is part of Gamma Entertainment
www.gammacash.com

This is the almost weekly SexSwap News-Tips-Trix and it goes to all members of SexSwap and SexSwap2 and AsianSwap and GaySexSwap and SexSwap2000 Banner Exchanges. It contains information on SexSwap, Porn, Tips'n'Trix, and software reviews for the adult webmaster. I perform all literary stunts without the use of nets, safety-cables, spell checkers, or grammar fixers, and this tends to leave the reader in a state of bewilderment...you will get used to it.

REMOVAL INSTRUCTIONS ->To stop receiving this newsletter, go to this URL
##remove##
-----------------------------------------------
GAMMA LINKS
(quick links to all our resources)

CASH www.gammacash.com
TGP tgp.erotism.com/
TGP BUILDER maximize.gammacash.com/buildgallery/
CONTENT www.gammae.com/webmasters-content.html
FREE HOST www.erotism.com/
WEBMASTER AREA maximize.gammacash.com/
NEWS www.gammae.com/gamma-news.html
CHAT chatboard.gammae.com/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi
SEXSWAP www.sexswap.com
TRIX ARCHIVE trix.sexswap.com

email daniel@gammae.com for newsletter ad rates and availability
-----------------------------------------------

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Enjoy the Benefits and Profits With Your Own Merchant Account!
www.electronictransfer.com

Benefits of accepting credit cards with www.electronictransfer.com

INCREASED PROFITS
INSTANT CREDIBILITY
FASTER PAYMENT
ACCEPT INSTANT MEMBERSHIPS
IMPROVED CUSTOMER SERVICE
CLOSE IMPULSE SALES
CONVENIENCE To The Customer
No More "The Check's In The Mail"
WORKING CAPITAL
REDUCED EXPENSES
LESS RISK THEN CHECKS
NO MORE BAD CHECKS

Even if you think you can't get a merchant account, because you believe
your volume to be TOO HIGH, you have been shut off by your current
processor or your business is just too new, you may just need to
TALK TO THE RIGHT COMPANY and Apply Now at www.electronictransfer.com

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

To describe this week's SexSwap news, I will use the term Grandma Dunn you to say "My Word!". I imagine this was a swear back in the 1940's :) This weeks issue is so massive in proportion that I have to send it out early before it gets any fatter. It is yet another HELLA edition of Tips Tricks and BS and I am not ever sure where to start. Let me just touch on a few items in this weeks issue that might turn your crank. VoyeurDorm and Playboy in the news. Christmas Sales = HUGE and Real Estate Sales = HUGE aka I just don't see a recession...I see expansion and growth and two cars in every garage for 2002/2003! The Revenge Of The PaySite Math 3. Oh...here is something fun Guru-O-Guf Urban Legends....things that everyone tells me I said when I clearly am getting the wrong point across =) I attempt to repair the miscommunications. How about a domain monitoring spam scam uncovered by the Baron. How about a long and awesome pro-level paysite and affiliate program comments from VirtuMike...this is a must read. Mike gives another side of the story. My side is always way out there on a tangent so I was glad Mike sent this in :) How about some CROOK catching filter discussions. Get out the Jim Beam and Dr. Pepper because it is going to be a long night

let's blow the lid off the popper...as Orville once said

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

VOYEURDORM WINS ANOTHER BIG COOURT BATTLE from RIchard
this just in
zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-844436.html

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

PRO LEVEL BOOKMARK TRICK from Peter
Peter sent in a trick so simple and efficient that I want to mention it up high. One problem I have always faught with in the trix archives is newer newletters are flat text files. The URLs are not hot. A year or two ago, several people sent in script to convert these flat files to hotlinked formats. the scripts work well, but I run them all manually and since it is a bunch of added work, I tend to run them 3-4 times a year. Peter has found this very simple solution that makes ANY url HOT in a flat webpage. I tried the site and it works! You right click on the proper link and add it to your favorites. Then on any url, highlight it and then click that bookmark. Simple and sweet.

Peter writes
I always read the newsletter on the web and not by email. The not working links in your letter are annoying and I found a solution. It is called a bookmarklet. Just highlight the url and press the bookmarklet in the favorites folder: The bookmarklet is called "Go To Selected URL".
www.bookmarklets.com/tools/navigation/index.phtml

I found the bookmarklet "Go to selected url" when I was trying to solve another problem. How to turn easily on and off javascript in IE5. Since mainstream is also using popups it really starts to become annoying. However many pages do not function properly without javascript. I find myself going deep into the options menu to turn javascript on and off several times a day. Just clicking away those popups is easier.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

BIDS FOR GINGER ON AMAZON TOP $100,000 from SignGuy
news.com.com/2100-1040-843072.html

CHECK OUT THE INSANE BIDDING HERE from Guru-O-Gif
s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/promotion-glance/A2LK33CD53IY38/

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

HOLIDAY SALES SET RECORDS
Investors Business Daily this week had the stats for Xmas and they were outstanding
www.investors.com
US retail topped $10Bil up 34% from Q3 and 13 over Q4 from a year ago despite anemic sales and total online sales rose 19% for the year to $32.6Bil which could they mean Million? 32 bill online?

then check out how the media wants to take this GOOD NEWS and make it BAD

IS THE PARTY OVER?
news.com.com/2100-1017-841503.html

There are so many things great about this and this makes me more mad at the media for saying that christmas was weak

1. SALES WERE NOT ANAEMIC ...you freaking media reporting idiots said they were, but they were strong as can be!

2. ONLINE SALES ARE GROWING GREAT...just as we all predicted.Online is still a small percent of sales which means retail numbers were good.

3. CONSUMERS WILL CONTINUE TO SHIFTING BUYING HABITS ONLINE

I want to hit the roof! These reporters do everything they can to downplay the sucess of the internet. online holiday sales up only 13%. Holy Fuck! when was the last time IBM grew 13%. Most fortune 500 companies would kill to grow 13%, and that was only 4th Q. And while total online retail sales climbed 19.3 percent. How is the party over when you have almost 20% growth? Are these reporters smoking dope? This is all great news if you ask me. These reporters are CROOKS I tell you :)

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

THE ANNUAL - LET'S ME CLEAR UP SOME SWEEPING STATEMENTS =)
To get a point across, I frequently make bold sweeping statements to exaggerate and shock readers with an extreme point that I believe is true. Occassionally this backfires and comes back to haunt me when I talk to online friends at tradeshows or on ICQ and I find myself constantly saying "I didn't mean that" =) I think it is a good idea for me to retouch on these areas occasionally to clear my miscommunications up :)

URBAN LEGENDS ABOUT GURU-O-GIF BROAD STATEMENT =)

Myth No. 1 - UGLY PAY SITES MAKE MORE MONEY
You don't know how many times people tell me I said this. =) Eeek! This is not the point I am trying to make. The point I am trying to get across is
- the only way to determine how a front-end will do, is to TEST
- often times, the front-ends you think looks crap, does well
- design many styles of front ends and test
- often time amatuerish code will be $10,000 in flash design

even yesterday, the "Baron of Bandwidth" said to me on the horn "you said ugly sites do better". I DID NOT! :) hee hee hee. Dayne then said that I told the story where I had a bet with another Andy, who had a very ugly site and he bet it would out pull my prety site. I tested the exact same traffic and guess what...that mofo site hammered mine. :) BUT that does not mean I am saying UNGLY sites win. I am saying "please test your front ends" since it is very difficult to tell how any site will do just by looking at it.

I wonder if I can find that ugly site in the Way Back Machine. Hee hee hee hee. I found it. Now this is BUTT ugly. Hey, I did not invent it...I copied it from anotehr Andy after the bet (he allowed me to). It don't get any sicker than this :) I wish I could find the pretty site face that competed against that one but it is not there. It was slick and trick and pro...but this turd won :) It taught me to TEST
web.archive.org/web/19980416101305/http://sixchicks.com/

NOTE:
When I talk about FRONT ENDS, I am talking about the 3-4 pages that tempt users into a paysite. They are the pages that try and sell the surfer on joining. Surfer tastes change over time. This is another good reason to test. I say test 4 times a year. If I was designing a PAY SITE front end today, these are the sites I would copy the look and feel of. It has been my experience that these SELL aka KICKS ASS. Here is one by my friend Herb.
www.exploitedlatinas.com

Here is another one
www.googirls.com/main.php?rid=bp1011

Just like I love the nasty Big Naturals frontends...so to speak :)
www.bignaturals.com/main.htm?id=

these front-ends are converting very well at this point in time. I hope I have cleared up this urban legend :)

Myth No. 2 - CONTENT DOES NOT MATTER
I know what you are saying "but Andy, you said!". What I always like to say is there are three things to make an internet site CONTENT, COMPUTERS, and TRAFFIC. #3 is the one that will make or break you. Traffic is everything. I also say that it is difficult to keep users by adding content. I still believe this is true. I also say that PORN is not about PORN, it is about TRAFFIC and again this is an extreme statement to get my point across. I do think you need good content and I do think you need to update it frequently...weekly or better. But I do not think you should spend more than 10% of your time worrying about it. Great content is available from 100 different source and the users just likes new...I like new boobs...I think most guys do too. I think content is so available at a good quality level that not much effort needs to be put into accumulating it...it is everywhere! TRAFFIC on the other hand is the HARDEST PIECE of the puzzle and so many people fall into the trap of fiddling with their site...hour after hour. "I think I am going to put these girls in BIG BOOBSS...no wait...I think I will call that AMATEUR MODELS....no wait...I think I will put the blonds in BIG BOOB BLONDES and the others in BABES". This is a complete waste of time. Spend the same time on the hunt for traffic. So yes, CONTENT MATTERS but I personally consider CONTENT EASY. You need to have quality content and update if frequently.

Myth No. 3 - AVERAGE USER STAY IS 2.5 MONTHS
I am always pulling a figure like this out of my butt and I think it is close to the truth but times change and every webmaster runs his site differently and this number has to vary from site to site. What I am really trying to say here is "There is no way in HELL that people are staying 7 months at a paysite and if you think this, you are sadly mistaken." I am also saying that it is critical that you get a handle on your income. What are you making per day, per week per month and what are you expenses. What are you amking per signup and per hit. Are you sure you are making money on the traffic you are buying? You better be damn sure. I am also saying that the average stay is LOW. It is most likely now in the range of 1.5 to 3 months on 80% of sites.

Myth No. 4 - PORN IS DEAD - GO MAINSTREAM YOUNG JOHNNY
A lot of us early porn folks have tried or are trying mainstream and with limited success. I know I used to cry "the sky is falling" in porn and it has not happened. I need to eat my words a bit and say that many have returned to their adult roots and mainstream is as hard to make a buck or harder than porn. Personally I think there are still gold mines to be found in mainstream since it is wide open, but that gold is sure hard to locate. I would also say that income levels in adult continue to shrink, just at a slower rate than I expected. If you love adult, stick with it. If you thirst for mainstream, give it a try. If you dig both, more power to you since it can be a nice balance.

Myth No. 5 - QUALITY AND SERVICE MEAN NOTHING TO PAYSITES
I hope people don't think this from what I have said. Quality and service are always the KEYS to any great business. When you are in touch with your customer, and treat him well, you win in the end. I know I say to focus on front-end testing etc, but I do not mean to imply to toss the customer in an empty pit and ignore him.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

PAYSITE MATH 3 - REVENGE OF THE JEDI
remember Jaws3 ...please andy....you are killing me ...aaaaaaaaaaa! Yep :) More paysite math ideas continued...Today I want to use this to touch on "buying traffic" and how to determine if you are making money on that traffic since these things all go hand in hand. One of my famous broad sweeping statements that I will have to correct in a year is "we cannot afford to buy traffic at this late stage since it is all over priced do to economic factors". Again this is one of my extreme statements that is basically true but there are exceptions to the rule AND if you know your math, you can buy traffic, test, and prove me wrong :) I think the best places to buy traffic are always CPC since we get to determine the price point at which we acquire that traffic and we can test in a variety of ways.

David writes
I just wanted to let you know that I like your news letter and the article about the PAYSITE MATH. To add to the paysite math, can you speak about the affiliate program that pay on active membership. I would like to know your opinion on that. I find that it's another thing to do the math about.

Andy writes
QUICK SUMMARY OF THE FORMULAS

no trial
AVG STAY = (REBILLS / NEW JOINS) + 1

trial
AVG STAY = (REBILLS / NEW JOINS) (+ small trial time if you want to add it)

The programs that pay out 50% have already built in protections, so they do not get ripped off if they are wrong on their calculations. They just have to insure they can make money at 50% of gross. I personally believe that the math of "WHAT IS A SIGN UP WORTH" is the same math no matter if the program pays for a "trial sign up" or an "active sign up". Imagine a site XYZ that has NO TRIAL and they do 100 NEW sign ups a day and they REBILL 200 customers a day. This is the average per day totals. and this means that on that site, the average customer is staying 200/100 + 1 = 3 months. And now we know the AVERAGE customer stay so if we charge $29 a month, then the average sign up GROSSES us 3 * $29 = $87 on average. If the site does have a 5 DAY TRIAL for $5, then the math is a little different and becomes

AVG STAY = (REBILLS / NEW JOINS) + small trial time
= 200 / 100 + 5 days
= 2 months and 5 days
= 2 x 29 + 5
= $63

if you prefer to be conservative, which is never a bad thing in accounting, you might leave off the $5 trial earnings and this builds in a small protection factor of 5-10%.

NOTE - CC BILLION ONLY
these calculation do not factor into account dialers, checks, non recurring billing, barter and only systems of billing. It works with credit cards or 3rd party billing which is the way most paysites get the bulk of their income. Again, when a site is growing or shrinking, the greater that rate, the less accurate this fun math is.

WHAT CAN WE DO WITH THIS MATH
Andy, so what now? What is so thrilling about these numbers? We can use these numbers to to do several things
1. estimate our future revenue stream
2. decide what our pay-per-sign-up rate should be
3. gauge what ads we can or cannot afford to buy
4. determine if we are upside down!

BUYING TRAFFIC #3
Let's look at #3. Let's say I now want to buy ads from google. I know that I will gross $63 a sign up. If I bid 5 cents at google for words an get 1000 hits a day and let's say I am getting a 1/1000 sign up ratio on this new traffic...am I making money or losing money? Please note that this REALLY should be done with NET income and we are using gross just for the example. I do not know the overhead structure of all paysites since they are all different.

so I buy 1000 hits and I get a 1/1000 sign up. This has cost me
1000 x 5cents or 0.05
=$50

I know my average customer is worth $63
$63 > $50 and therefore Yippppee!

Sell the farm Ethel, I am moving to Beverly Hills! :) Now its not that simple, BUT you can see that it looks like these are good ads to buy in this simple case. The only way you can determine IF you can buy a stream of traffic is if you KNOW WHAT A SIGN UP IS WORTH. If on the same traffic I am a 1/2000 sign up rate...I am losing my shirt and under water. This gets back to some economic theory that many of you might of seen in first year university. I get asked this question often and am not sure if I explain it well enough. Here is why I believe it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to buy traffic from adult sites today.

If you are making 6 cents per hit based on some of the stuff we are talking about today. You know you are making $63 a signup and you get 1000 hits a day and you get 1 sign up a day....well then...you are manking 6.3 cents a hit. If this is true (and this is just a made up example, I am pulling numbers out of my ass), if this is true, how much will you pay for traffic? You will buy as much traffic as you can get your hands on as long as you are making money on it. Now again this is GROSS dollars...pretend for a moment you are making 6 cents NET ...Would you pay up to 5.9 cents to get traffic? I would...Send me 10 trillion, 100 zillion hits at 5.9 cents. The more I buy, the more I make (AS LONG AS I am sure of my math). How much traffic do you want to buy at 7 cents? Answer - None. I don't want any. I am upside down. Therefore, people will buy as much traffic as their bankroll supports if they are making money on that traffic. There is no reason not to buy all the traffic in the world IF you are netting income on it. Therefore, the websites that are able to squeeze the hit for the maximum 1/100th of a cent, they will bid the price of traffic up as they compete for that traffic. It might go as high as 6.2 cents in this example. This is the laws of supply and demand. There is always some site that is making a little more per hit than my site because of market forces...so traffic is bid up to a point where only maybe 5% of webmasters can buy it and make money on it. The rest of the people buying it are FISH because they do not know their own math. Therefore it has been my experience, if you find traffic for sale, or banner spots available, it is generally over priced or priced at a level in which you will not be able to make any money. If it was priced at a level where average webmasters could make money, it would be quickly sold out.

TWO THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW WHEN BUYING TRAFFIC

1. WHAT AM I MAKING PER SIGN-UP
you need to know what a sign up is worth on average to calculate this. You also have to know your costs...bandwidth, content, salaries. You have to know the NET...not the gross. The math above gets you started and then you need to factor in the other costs.

2. WHAT WILL I MAKE FROM THIS TRAFFIC I AM BUYING
there is only one way to know...TEST TEST TEST. Buy some and test. What are the sign up rates. I do not wish to test for 3 months. I want to generally know if I am going to make money in 1-2 weeks. Am I above water. Am I a FISH?

I was a FISH at one point through no fault but my own because I did not know paysite math. A long time ago I used to buy $10,000 in banner ads per month from WebSideStory when they were huge in adult as hitbox. The ads were something like 4 cents a click (a bargain in todays standards). Finally after month or two, I lucked out and got help on the math formulas we have been babbling about for a few weeks now.. My bandwidth was $1000 a month and my content was $5000 a month. I had a 3 DAY FREE TRAIL and I was getting 8 new signups a day and was doing 20 rebillings a day at $20 a month

WAS I MAKING MONEY?
First, what was my average customer stay? Since I had a 3 DAY FREE TRIAL it was

AVG = REPEATS / JOINS
20 rebills / 8 new joins = 2.5 months

What as a customer worth then?
2.5 x $20 = $50

So the average Join was worth $50 to me.

Therefore I was doing
$50 x 8 x 30 = $12,000
that is what I will make over the average life of the customer.

COSTS
$10,000 in ads
$1,000 in bandwidth
$5,000 in content

that is $16,000 in total costs.
and I am making $12,000

who is the FISH? Me! I was negative $4000 a month and did not know it. I could not pay 4 cents a click. I was making money on the signups for what they cost me $12k - $10k, but when you added in my other costs, I was upside down. I had to stop buying those ads. Many people bought those ads after me. Perhaps their sites MADE MORE per customer, or perhaps they did not know paysite math. The price of advertising will rise to the person who can bid the highest for it. As I said above, eventaully 1 or 2 customers bought up all of WebSideStories ad space since they were able to make money at a higher click rate than me and others who were trying to purchase the same ads. I hope some of this makes better sense with that example. Agree, Disagree or want to give me a karate chop in the neck? Please send me your comments to share with others andy@lips.com Peter just sent me an email that hits home the point on supply, demand, and the economics of advertising

Peter writes
And thank you very much for the tip on Google. Two or three months to make money, before the masses jump in and the bid price rises sky high.

PER TRIAL OR PER ACTIVE from David
David responds
Have a look at www.intergal.com ($70 free trials. $100 active members) , or www.adultplex.com ($37.50 per trials, $45 per active members) . The definition of an active membership is a surfer that renew after is trial. If you have the choice between getting paid per trial or per active, which one would you choose, and why? Is it clear?

Andty writes
I am not sure which one to choose. I imagine that the results would be very close between the two and this is how the affiliate program has structured the math. You will certainly get more signup since the trial but get paid less. I tend to think that in the end the math will end up very similar for total revenue as long as the affilaite program has done their math.

anyone have any opinions they wish to share on PER TRIAL or PER ACTIVE? please email me andy@lips.com

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

NEW QUESTIONS FOR PAYSITE OWNERS - ALLOW ACCESS TO ALL SITES?
Stephen emailed me with some interesting thoughts. I see that some paysites now use the practice of giving members who sign up for one of their sites, access to all their sites. If they operate 20 paysites and you signup for AAA site, you then get the bonus of being allowed into BBB and CCC ... ZZZ site. Some feel that this HELPS RETENTION RATES and I think there is probably some truth to that. Does anyone have any comments to share on this practice? Does it keep cusomters longer? Or maybe just keep them happier? email andy@lips.com with your comments

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

PAYPAL IN CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT
news.com.com/2100-1017-842240.html

Daniel writes
they did that to us when we started with them ... they were holding something like 10k for over 2 months before we were able to clear our name ....but we were still able to receive money, but weren't able to withdraw or send money

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

ICANN SEEKS MAJOR OVERHAUL from SignGuy
'Totally private model’ for Internet oversight isn’t working
www.msnbc.com/news/715436.asp

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

POSSIBLE DOMAIN MONITORING SCAM from Baron Of Bandwidth
Baron Of Bandwidth writes
This company called Registry.net is spamming people saying there are problems with their domains... when in fact there arent...I've probably received 100 emails from them on domains we host so far saying:

"It has recently come to our attention that there is a potential configuration
difficulty with the domainhidden.com domain...etc etc....we are in the business of providing services that allow you to correct many of these conditions."

Baron Of Bandwidth writes
www.registry.net/diagnosis/

No matter what domain you type in there, it always reports an error..even microsoft.com came back with an error. It appears they are attempting to sign you up with monitoring for your site and it's domain name. I smell scam. Check it out.

Baron
www.completeweb.net

Guru-O-Gif writes
I took Dayne's test even one step further and entered the domain REGISTRY.NET and got back the exact same error message! Sure looks crooked to me to :)

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

ONLINE PORN SPAMMERS MAKING PUBLIC ANGRY from Richard
www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/16495.html

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

BAG OF SALT TABLE O' TRIX CONTENT

WHICH KEYWORDS TO BID FOR from Alex
ADWORDS HAS SOME NICE FEATURES from Joe
WHERE CAN I FIND GOOD VB PROGRAMMER from Peter
PRO-LEVEL PAYSITE AND AFFILIATE PROGRAM COMMENTS from VirtuMike
CREATE YOUR OWN FILE SHARING NETWORK from SignGuy
POWELEAP 1.2GIG CPU NOW WORKS WITH ASUS P2B from Bruce
CONVERTING TEXT HTML SITES TO HOT LINKS from Peter

MORE NEWS
/******************************************
PLAYBOY REVEALS LOSS from SignGuy
money.cnn.com/2002/02/26/companies/playboy/

LINUX CLUSTERS IN THE NEWS from SignGuy
Shrek was made on a 1000 pc redhat cluster!
www.it-director.com//article.php?id=2625

INTERNET PATENTING MAY GET HARDER from SignGuy
seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/134408290_eusoftware21.html

MS MEDIA TRACKS SONGS AND WHAT USERS PLAY from SignGuy
www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/262326p-2436274c.html

CYBERBABES AND ORGAZMATRONS IN 21ST CENTURY from SignGuy
www.msnbc.com/news/710508.asp?pne=msn

PET FOOD RETAILER PLANS BIG IPO from SignGuy
news.moneycentral.msn.com/ticker/article.asp?Feed=RTR&Date=20020218&ID=1429060&Symbol=US:PYPL

ANTISPAM LEGAL BURDEN from Charles
www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO68441,00.html

EBAY FIGURINE SCANDAL from SignGuy
www.msnbc.com/news/713634.asp?pne=msn

NEW POP UP AD BLOCKER from SignGuy
dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artprevbot.cgi?article_id=19230

EBAY TUMBLES AS EBAY BUYS BACK BILLPOINT from Richard
www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/16463.html

ARE SEARCH ENZGINES AN ANACHRONISM from Richard
www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/16440.html
Guru-O-Gif writes
I don't know if I agree with this story. I buy everything online BUT I use google 100x a day. Yes, once you like a store you stick with it...but how do you find it. Search engines might not be for shopping, but they are certainly a focal point still. Just as Malls exist and individual shops exist in real life. I think we will see a consolidation of search engines...just the natural product life cycle of any business.

COULD NAPSTER WIN CAUSE LABELS TO LOSE from SignGuy
msn.com.com/2100-1106-843610.html

CAFE OWNERS REQUIRED TO BE PORN POLICE IN MUMBAI from SignGuy
holy attack on civil liberties batman
www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50615,00.html

THE GENIUS OF CHUCK JONES
www.msnbc.com/news/492387.asp

SOFTWARE HARDWARE
/*****************************************
15% OFF CRUTIAL RAM FROM ZIFF DAVIS OFFER from Richard
www.crucial.com/promo/index.asp?prog=qzd&CPE=EM984&CP=ziffdavis

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

GOSSAMER THREADS - WEB BUILDING APPLICATIONS from 6foot4
6foot4 writes
www.gossamer-threads.com/index.htm
www.gossamer-threads.com/scripts/links-sql/clients.htm

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

JAVA SCRIPT KIT from 6foot4
www.javascriptkit.com/

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

CODEFOOT WEBMASTER TOOLS by 6foot4
6foot4 writes:
A cool set of freeware tools that might come in handy for webmasters..
www.codefoot.com/software/

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

TGP SCRIPTS from Blackula
Blackula writes:
have you seen that germesia.com tgp script -- bad to the fucking bone -- i was doing some research on writing a tgp script that will allow me to run multiple tgp posts from one interface -- this damn thing has everything
www.germesia.com/

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

AdultMatchDoctor.com, a large adult dating site, has launched its affiliate program! We get over 25,000 new members EVERY MONTH. We pay recurring revenues of 35% gross on each paid membership. Our affiliate program is managed via Ibill, so you know you get ON TIME, twice a month. TWO-TIER PROGRAM. For further details email affiliates@adultmatchdoctor.com.

SIGNUP NOW at
www.adultmatchdoctor.com/trackaff.asp?sw

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

TRIX
/******************************************
WHICH KEYWORDS TO BID FOR from Alex
Alex writes
which keywords would you think is worthwhile bidding for that I can use to redirect to a sponsor? Or is this even viable. Thanks

guru-O-gif writes
that's a complex subject in itself....do you bid high on words like 'porn' or go for secondary words like "large tits" for 5 cents. I have written about this a few times...you might try to find old articles...the only way to tell is TEST TEST TEST. With the big words, you can get a lot of traffic with one or two words but you have to pay a lot to compete. With smaller words, you really have to buy a lot of words to get the same traffic. I tend to lean for the many words at low rate since you protect the margins better.

A couple good ways to see what words are getting the most clicks and to find more variations on words, try the OVER suggestion tool and also Google tells you your approximate cost per day which tells what terms are going for.
inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

ADWORDS HAS SOME NICE FEATURES from Joe
Joe writes
Looks like AdWords is a 5 cent minimum. Cool feature is the AdWord Discounter that keeps you from paying more than you have to for a listing. So if you're paying 7 cents and the listing behind goes to only 5 cents they'll automatically reduce you to 6 cents so there's no wasted space. If only they would start at a penny I think this would be heaven. I'm currently using Overture, FindWhat, and GoClick so I'm definately going to give google a shot.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

WHERE CAN I FIND GOOD VB PROGRAMMER from Peter
Peter asks
do you no where i can get a good visual basic programmer?

guru-o-gif writes
you might try posting on elance. This way you will get several people bidding on your project and can pick and choose.
www.elance.com

another thing you might do is post to a couple newsgroups seeking programmers. Here are some groups where you are most likley to find VB experts
comp.lang.visual.basic
it.comp.lang.visual-basic

groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&group=comp.lang.visual.basic
groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&group=it.comp.lang.visual-basic

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

PRO-LEVEL PAYSITE AND AFFILIATE PROGRAM COMMENTS from VirtuMike
VirtuMike writes
Where I'm from, an average is a number, not a range.
By this I mean you don't say, "My members stay an average of 4-7
months." Instead, you say, "My members stay 5.5 months." By using
their math, I could claim, "My members on CyberBabes.com average
anywhere from 3 months to six and a half years or more!" It's just not
done that way.

I remember a spam from a company advertising a site that looked
amazingly similar to Busty-Amateurs (they even watermark their images to
make them look deceivingly similar to busty), asking for webmasters,
claiming their site held members, "We are averaging 5.3 months for
members." Bold claim, if it held water I would be sure to blast a ton
of my traffic at it. After a little detective work, I found that their
initial domain registration was not even two months prior to that claim,
and they claimed the site was started sometime in the middle. Now I ask
you, how could you believe them? For that claim to be valid, that site
should have been operating for at least a year, not a month and a half.
On a lighter note, I ran into these kids in New Orleans on a bus, where
they tried to convince me to give them all my traffic. They were all
smiles and proud of their program. I asked them if they were the same
guys who average 5.3 months, they said yes. I asked them if they had
been around 5.3 months yet, and they knew I knew. You should have seen
their faces.

I too have an MBA, and my faith is in numbers. I have my beliefs, which
are usually with yours, but in the recurring vs. flat rate, I don't side
with you. While I see that there are a great many sponsors out there,
and I know there are no shortages of people to step into my place for
Joe Webmaster's traffic, I believe that a well run site is more
profitable long term. The catch here is that the average free site
webmaster really doesn't have the time to look at the site(s) or
programs as a whole, they're too busy working on traffic. But a well
managed site with proper customer service and regular updates is more
profitable long term.

I view it this way, most webmasters NEED the quick buck. I believe
that, assuming a well managed program, a recurring program in theory
should return a higher payout. The flat rate is just incentive to
cheat, push fine print, "borrow" things like exit traffic/email
addresses/foreign traffic. If the program isn't well run and the sites
aren't set for high recurrings with good content, the programs can't
afford to pay you out as much, so they also have incentive to cheat to
make their profit. I also view it as the flat rate is just another way
of financing the transaction - the recurring will pay out more, but it
happens over a couple of months. If you are in this long term, you
probably don't need the money today, and can afford to take the
recurring approach. Smaller guys need the quick money, so they pay a
premium to the program to cash out quickly. My VirtuBucks program is
based on recurring, and statistically I have calculated that you would
do a couple points better off a recurring. We don't have incentive to
cheat, we feed the exit traffic to other sites in the program, and
everything is very clean. We look for other similar programs send our
own traffic to (yes even sponsors have to send traffic to other
sponsors). I only use two companies that have flat rate payouts (Max
Cash and Click Cash), and that's because we've been using them for many
many years and it's working. We also send a minor amount of traffic to
Babylon-X (per click), but we've had that traffic going there so long I
don't even know where it comes from anymore.

Not to kiss anyone's ass, I really like the way Gamma works, where it
tracks the surfer from the moment they come in to a gamma site until all
their money is extracted as efficiently as possible. I get payouts on
their sales (we use recurring), payouts on the email collector, payouts
on the dialers, payouts on the drugs, free content, and more. It's nice
to see an efficient machine.

When we pick a sponsor, I look at all kinds of different factors. One
of which is the match of the sponsor to the traffic. I don't run a
bondage sponsor on a big boob site very often (we do place text links
all over the place so if they see something they're into, it's there for
the clicking). We also do well with sponsors that have tie in content,
that way we can better match the clicks with the destination. If you
have content that is significantly different then the tour at the end of
a banner, your conversion rate is gonna be down. We offer pic of the
day and The Cyberbabe News for free content, that stuff matches the
sites we plug. Another thing we look at is webmaster support - do they
really want or need our traffic or are they a bunch of pompous
unreachable jerkoffs? Many programs believe that they are entitled to
your traffic and rest on their laurels while Nero fiddles and Rome
burns. I prefer to stick with programs that are progressive and active,
not just on the webmaster boards, but continuously tweaking and
innovating their marketing mix.

Not to kiss any more ass but I have found some guys that really hold
members, like Flashcash, Lightspeed, Wasteland, and various amateur
sites. Also look at billing companies, I try to mix them up so I don't
depend on any one company. We've had problems with one of the big
three, they keep bouncing checks on us (you can probably guess which
one). I like a few different options here, Maxcash, Babenet, Orgasm,
Clickcash, and Babylon use alternative billing. Flashcash and Frenzy
use their own bank accounts based on other billing companies - so you
know that their checks clear. We are currently heavily CCBill loaded,
they're doing reasonably well and they are very consistant. Remember,
it's a billing game, the transactions dictate the bottom line. Billing
is the single most important aspect of the industry.

To sum up, quick cash good, long term cash better. Pick your sponsors
looking at the big picture and where the traffic flows. Do your
homework and do best estimates. Always look at a site's members area
before you plug it, most paysites are a total crock inside. And don't
believe the hype.

Guru-O-Gif writes
VirtuMike's words are golden. He is dead on target with these words of wisdom. Mike and I see eye to eye on almost everything and the things we disagree upon are almost just subjective matters of opinion.

Mike states "a well managed site with proper customer service and regular updates is more profitable long term."

Guru-O-Gif writes
I have to agree completely. I often make some wide sweeping statments to get a point across and this sometimes gets the wrong point across :) Clearly a site that cares about its customers will have higher retention rates than sites that treat them like dirt or hide from them. Quality and customer service does matter. I'm sorry if I sweep over this. I just assume all reader of SexSwap news care about their members :) So when I say "test multiple front ends", perhaps I should really say "on your sites of quality customer care, test front-ends". I will try to be more careful in the future.

One area where Mike and I have a difference of opinion, is still in pay-per-sign-up and percent-recurring. I just see the math as the same, and therefore I will take my math upfront. I see a major drawback with each system. The two major drawbacks with the PER SIGNUP system are
a) if the affiliate program has miscalculated their math, you could send them to the poor house fast, where at 50% recurring, they always get 50% even if they are bad at math
b) you are stuck at taking a fixed amount....you may be losing out on making more at a % recurring

the two major drawbacks to PERCENT RECURRING ARE
a) if the program goes under, you are now out approximately 50% of the average stay. This means that if the average customer stay is 2.5 months, you just lost 5 weeks pay. Where if a per sign up goes under, you are out 2 weeks pay. Since the dawn of porn, I hazard to guess that 50%+ of sponsor programs have gone under....and that estimate is being kind.
b) you are accepting a slower billing cycle. you are getting paid over months instead of weeks

I would like to add, even IF a recurring sponsor said "we can guarantee you will make 15% more than you are now if you switch to us", I would not make that switch. It is just me personally. I have always HATED chasing bad debt and HATED not being paid. I will take less pay to be paid faster every time. Not everyone is this way :)

Anyways, I just wanted to add this to Mike's post. I have read his post 3 times now since it is so good. His thoughts are terrific words of wisdom from a successful adult webmaster.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

CREATE YOUR OWN FILE SHARING NETWORK from SignGuy
www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,81986,00.asp

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

POWELEAP 1.2GIG CPU NOW WORKS WITH ASUS P2B from Bruce
From PowerLeap email
Asus P2B Compatibility Update: Do you own an Asus P2B motherboard or Asus P2B motherboard-based system? Now you can enjoy the full power of our 1.2 GHz PL-iP3/T CPU upgrade without a hitch, thanks to our new P2B BIOS upgrade from eSupport.com!

Bruce writes
Several benchmarks tests that I have seen say the 1.2 G Celeron is faster than the 1Gig Coppermine PIII. Not sure how accurate the info is. Maybe Tom's Hardware has something.
www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q2/010612/tualatin-03.html
www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q4/011003/index.html

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

CONVERTING TEXT HTML SITES TO HOT LINKS from Peter
Here is a fairly simple solution to my newsltter archive problem
Peter writes
I have a solution for your problem about clickable links. Not sure you are
going to like it. Ok here it is:
Open your newsletter in Word
Choose --> layout --> automatic layout
Choose ---> file --> save as " *.htm"

here is the result of our last mail
croughs.com/re_bookmarklet.htm

INTERESTING SITES
/******************************************
WILD TUGBOAT RIVER PICS from Richard
home.attbi.com/~nwigen/TowBoat/towboat.htm

GURU OF GIF
/******************************************
DATE SYMMETRY ERROR from Mole, Alex, Jill, Mike
Mole writes
In fact, the next time is "only" 110 years away.
21:12 21.12 2112

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

CROOK CHASING FILTERS
If you run a paysite, toplist, tgp, banner exchange, link trade, pic post, personal site, etc, then you have dealt with CROOKS =) How do you catch crooks? There are many ways and I wanted to share with you some of my personal favorite ways. One problem with this is that when you write about such ideas, the CROOKS read the ideas and get better. Most of these ideas will pertain more to click thru, top list, exchanges and other count related sites and less to recurring or signup systems that are safer by their very nature.

1. COOKIES
most crooks are low level. They can hack code but they are not great programmers. 80% are script kiddies. 20% are masterminds. The 80% are easiest to catch. If you system uses cookies, you might start tracking cookie errors. On the web, usually you see a cookie error rate of less than 10% at any given time because of paranoid freaks, wierd browser users and other oddities. if you track this on your system, and you start see numbers like 30%, then usualy something is awry and a low level hacker is hammering code into your site without returning the proper cookies which take more advanced level programming knowledge or a better attempt at hacks

2. DRILL DOWN CLICK THRUS
I think this filter was first made famous with the raw click guys. Most programs can get a click to a site, but then that click sites there on the front page and does not drill down. This means that the hit never does anything but stare at teh front page. 1,000,000 hits and no one wants to click a link and enter the site. Why? Because you are being hit-botted to death. These are not human clicks. The raw guys then decided to only count clicks that went one level deeper. this is not totally fair since lots of humans can get to a site and not enter, but it certainly cancels hit bot attacks.

3. CLICK RATES
again, most low level hackers will hammer a site into oblivion with a script, yet they negelect to add the portion to their code to click the icon and banner. You will see 23, 456,123 showings, and no clicks. Why? Lots of reasons. a) they have a computer at home auto refreshing code until the cows some home. b) they have loaded 786 of your banner codes on a page and are auto refreshing with customers. c) they are using the always amusing 1 pixel x 1 pixel version of your code that ants might click on but humans cannot see. 0% clcik rate is a big tip off to catch this lower level attack. Now what happens when a mastermind CROOK attacks? Well he is tough. He knows HOW to build clicks into his system. There is no hard and fast way to catch him except to watch for patterns. Two patterns that I like to watch for are a) click rates are way too high or low. No one knows the average click rate of your system except you. A crook can only guess and it is a difficult guess. He might gues 2% and then begin hammering. You then notice that your system click rate is 1% or 3% well it is time to sit down and watch this account like a hawk and do additional investigation. The second thing you can do is watch for perfectness. Even most advanced crooks do not build in randomness although they might now after reading this. You will see a perfect 3% click rate every day. This again means nothing but should be a red flag to watch this account. I have personally made the error of accusing innocent sites on this factor so be careful Some sites just have very regular traffic patterns that are very stable.

4. TURBO ATTACKS
Man pro level crooks wait til it is 3AM your time and then hit the turbo afterburner and HAMMER the crap out of your system for an hour. I hates this style of attack for years. I would be snuggled in my bed and this is when the evil CROOKS would work their magic and JOLT the system for a quick million counts. I would wake up, see something was wrong, find the bad guy, lock the account. This went on for weeks. You can see how this can rob you 6 hours a day. Solution...build a filter that GRABS and locks all NEW accounts that SPIKE until you approve them by hand. This then flags an account and keeps things running but does not give the crook the gravy unless you approve. This catches teh bad guys and does not hurt the good guys excpet for freezing their account temporarily while keeping tabs running.

5. MRTG
One of the simplest and best systems for finding crooked activity is the simple graphing program called MRTG. Most ISPs run this. You watch again for patterns. Spikes are not always bad, but they are a red flag...hey, something is kind of fishy. Here is one of our graphs....I circled an area that would be considered a flag. it might mean something...it might mean nothing. It I see this 2-3 days...I better sit down for a few hours and do a lot of leg work investigating.
trix.sexswap.com/mrtg1.gif

Here is MRTG
ee-staff.ethz.ch/~oetiker/webtools/mrtg/
I personally have never been able to install it on my own. :) Give it a try or ask your ISP to load that badboy up

FINAL THOUGHTS
I have found over time that CROOKS are always CROOKS. You can never beat them, but you can minimize their threat. The cream always rises to the top and the crooks always get greedy.
1. they are always greedy. Greed leads to excess and you finally see them
2. most are lower level and pure filters can grab them quickly. the pro guys take more time and energy
3. being aware of the daily look and feel of your system is perhaps the biggest secret. Try to get your programmer to build in a few speedometers....things that tell you how your site or system is doing. Watch these gauges a little each day as you would your car's thermostat or rpm meter. When the gauges are funny, it usually means something is up. A few filters can be hard coded, but for the to catch the baddest of the bad, you need to do more personal investigation. I find it is better to use some filters as flags to say "here are 3 suspects" and then look at those accounts closely by hand to make the final determination. It is a tough challenge of spy vs spy. Be ready to make some mistakes and to apologize to innocent friends :) I have made this mistake 2-3 times and it is never any fun. These are some of my favorite crook chasing filters. There are lots more that we can possibly talk about in the future. If you want to share any of your thoughts on this subject, please email me andy@lips.com and I will add your comments to next week's letter.

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

PRIDE 19 WAS WAY TOO GOOD
here are the lads after a hard night of kicking the crap out of each other. It was a WAR and they all deserve a hand.
www.fcfighter.com/pride19postfightpix.htm

the results
www.pridefc.com/results/pride19.htm

here is a neat quote I read the other day on the dangers of mixed martial arts and no holds barred. I find that many people consider it dangerous, when statistically, it is far safer than skateboarding.

"I did my own study," says Eric Moon, a Chicago physician and martial arts practitioner. "I looked at 167 consecutive boxing matches, then examined 196 consecutive matches from UFC. In boxing, fighters were knocked out 45 percent of the time. In UFC, fighters were knocked out 7 percent of the time. There is almost never a broken bone in UFC–maybe a few in a hundred fights. Compare that to knee injuries alone in high school football or basketball. In my mind, no-holds-barred fighting is much safer than boxing or traditional high school sports."

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

BUTCHER DAYS AWAY FROM GETTING BACK ON ROAD
www.cobralads.com/HOC-fires383/butcher42.html
www.cobralads.com/

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

GloBill.com LLC - globill.com

===============================================================
***************************  Billing and Beyond   **************************
===============================================================

Glo-Bill offers the best turn-key third party billing service in the industry. No merchant account needed. No setup fee. Be up and running within 30 minutes. Process all major credit cards, online checks, 900 phone billing and international phone billing. Advanced revenue splitting program. Exhaustive stats functions. Outstanding support – most email answered within 2 hours! We treat webmasters like gold and help our clients earn more dollars with higher signup ratios and less chargebacks. No blind, excessive scrubbing of foreign transactions.
Log in now for an instant preview account!
www.globill-systems.com/cgi-bin/misc/jumpin.cgi?url=sexswap

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

those are my stories

chow mein wayne

Andy
andy@lips.com

email daniel@gammae.com for newsletter ad rates