In response to: The pros and cons of Lawrence Clowner from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"Action continues to speak louder than words in the business world."

I know what you are thinking: not another thread about some keyboard clown that nobody had even heard of a year or two ago and likely few will remember when the day is done. Yup, I hear your pain, but there are actually some partially useful business aspects to this clown's antics.

Loki posted this, somewhat jokingly I think:

Quote:

"As for learning, Check out the newbie board, Traffic board or the Design & HTML Board. The main board is a no-holds-bared board so to speak, and latly only thing to realy learn is what an asshat LC is lol.")


This is contradicted by Clowner's flurry of disruptive activity. There is something to learn here: Lawrence Clowner is good at getting himself self-publicity, but horrible at converting that publicity into any sort of income!

Here's more evidence:

Recently, I gave this character, Lawrence Clowner, a bunch of useful information on his blog in this thread and what does this guy do?

He shuts his blog down! Quits!

If this isn't clear evidence to any serious webmaster what's really going on with this character, I don't know what else could be. So here's the pros and cons of this webmaster wannabe:

1) CON: He doesn't spend any time reworking his blog or reworking with any of the suggestions given him. He doesn't even try doing any work, as best as I could tell, except to quit. Heck, quitting is easy! Is he allergic to work or something? Yes, I think he's one of those lazy wannabe webmasters who foolishly expects to slap something together and make a bunch of money because it's [gasp] porn. Do porn and get rich quick! Yeah, that's the ticket.

PRO: he helps support this totally flawed business strategy. The more people who enter the business thinking like this, the better it gets for the rest who actually do take their work seriously. Yeah, it might be that most folks who aren't in this business think selling porn isn't the most moral job in the world, but an honest hard day's work is still work. Those who think there is some fast track to success in any business, including the adult business, will learn otherwise fast -- and can use Lawrence Clowner as a living, breathing example.

2) CON: this ungrateful clown doesn't even bother to acknowledge the time taken to give him some real world useful suggestions and information and guess what? Fuck you, Lawrence Clowner, you'll never get one iota of useful help from any serious webmaster when you treat them this way. Speaking for myself, it's extremely unlikely that I'll ever comment seriously on any post this clown has ever written again. This, of course, assumes that I actually know it's him.

PRO: I was able to use his blog as an instructional backdrop for what NOT TO DO on a blog.

3) CON: It seems rather obvious, based on his activity, that Lawrence Clowner is only interested in being a media whore and as long as he continues to receive any attention, he'll just keep on doing it. The problem is what is he using this promotion for that generates any $$$?

PRO: I'm not going to let this fool steal any more of my work time. If I feel like kicking a can in the road, to join the chorus of booing, to network with others who also can't believe the idiocy, then I'll dive into threads like this one. Otherwise, this guy is clearly the jester of the party and solely here to waste whatever useful, productive webmaster time we all have. He's pure entertainment value only with zero substance.

4) CON: this activity might keep good webmasters away from posting on this board. It's true that some serious webmasters might feel the likes of Lawrence Clowner should be banned from posting at ANS. This would go against the grain of what ANS has done historically. We've really only banned folks who have done malicious things to the site (hacking, floods, mass spamming in the message body, etc). While it could be argued that Lawrence Clowner is spamming himself, what is he promoting in the message body except his own exploits? Referral programs to other webmaster programs in his signature space are allowed by the rules of the board and he can't be blamed for trying to use this space to his advantage. Here's a solution to those who don't like him: don't click on anything in his signature space!

PRO: I guess the one remotely positive side effect for ANS anyway is that his antics do help the post count numbers on the main board. Some people judge the usefulness of a board by post count and while that is a subject probably best explored seriously in this thread, I think there is one aspect of this thinking that makes good business sense: more activity brings in more webmasters. So Lawrence Clowner is sort of helping ANS on some lower level, though I'm sure there is a group that thinks he should be banned because he is disruptive by all his self-promotion and "everybody is picking on me" schtick.

Therefore, for solely that reason (the benefit of ANS) I hope this attention whore, Lawrence Clowner, increases his post count and talks more to himself. Perhaps it would be cool if he included some pictures of himself drooling all over that eagle tat. He wouldn't be the first fool who has ranted on a messageboard with nobody else taking him seriously.

And if this moronic activity brings in new or returning serious, real hard-working webmasters (that see right through Lawrence Clowner as most of us do) and they get involved in the many, many business-useful things happening around ANS then this story will have a positive ending -- for ANS. So let ANS use Lawrence Clowner like he's using all of us that bother to give him the time of day.

Action continues to speak louder than words in the business world.

In response to frustrated adult webmaster from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"So perhaps instead of broadening the scope of what you are doing, it's time to rope it in and concentrate on less than 5 different main activities every day in your business."

Welcome frustrated to ANS and it's refreshing to read someone positing with such candor. I am sure that there are many, many more that are in your situation but may feel reluctant (for whatever reason) to come forth and actually talk about it.

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally Posted by frustrated
Yes i understand everything you are saying to a degree, but I urge anyone that has seen a unique idea in porn to post an example.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I see ideas almost every day that someone could run with. Have you read the blog brainstorming thread by chance? I've been suggesting, encouraging, prodding, poking both there and on my weekly radio show that folks should start a blog. Why? What for? That's the whole point of that thread. I encourage you to investigate this as one of the diversified ventures that Rowdy commented on.

Why start a blog? Because not a lot of people are doing it in the adult arena ... yet. At one time when Persian Kitty, Tommy and Greenguy started link lists it was an original thing to do. Not these days, everybody has a link list. It was something back then that not many others had done. You can have that same type thing with an adult-oriented blog. It's just a different way of working through the content. In fact, if I was starting out new I'd work the markets that had very little competition.

Why compete against sites like The Hun when you don't have to?

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally Posted by frustrated
Lets talk about traffic? Seeing as one can only submit 1 gallery and 1 freesite per day. Now what, after you have done that, whats next for traffic? Search engines? Ok thats a rough discussion were you may not see any results for quite awhile.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Make a TGP or Link List that features niche-oriented content promoting newer and/or different sites. The traffic won't be as good as working the tried and true sites, but that will keep your overhead/expenses down and thus will increase your profitability for each website you build.

Search engine and bookmark traffic is free traffic! There are no rules you have to bend to with other webmasters, no recip links or graphics required. You might put a strategy together to develop your own traffic. Say in the beginning it's only 5 or 10% your own traffic and 90-95% trades and such. Well you take that 5-10% and move that to a site where the ratio is reversed: 90-95% your own generated traffic and 5-10% links out to others.

The search engines tend to reward more unique, relative content because there won't be as many searches for this type content. Your chance of getting a higher listing and more qualified traffic is higher.

Quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally Posted by frustrated
Do you think 5-6k a month income is BIG money? I certainly hope not. Give me more ideas for gathering traffic on a daily basis that is not controlled by other webmasters and thier rules? Ya having 30-40 sponsors making even 20 dollars a week would be great but having to live by rules of tgp's and link lists obviously limits you massively. What other forms of traffic would you suggest, what are you doing to get traffic on a daily basis? And yes I am getting frustrated beyond words at this point and time. This totally sucks right now.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Having 30-40 sponsors is a bit complex for someone working alone at this unless they have a machine running (I'm assuming you are working solo on this). One ends up with a scattered sale here and there across a number of different sites so it is difficult to truly analyze what is working and what is not. I'd recommend focusing on say 5-10 at most sponsors over the next 3-6 months.

Focus on specific sites and programs to increase your income. Sites that offer bennies like CE Cash along with sales as well as releasing new content and sites are good ones to focus on. Rowdy would be able to tell you what's new at CE Cash and there are always new things going on, so you can stay on the curve with a sponsor like them, building and promoting stuff that is new.

I don't think that 5-6k a month is BIG money, no, but Rowdy makes good points about economics on individuals and I'll just say I agree with him. Personally and professionally, I look at each of our websites as a separate business in that the goal is to make that site profitable, not only to make BIG money from any one site, but simply to stay out of the red. Recently I just put one sponsor up on a site that I hadn't updated in over 6 months and the addition of this sponsor resulted in making a profit of $50/month. All I did was cut and paste some code to it for this sponsor. $50/month profit isn't that much for one site but show me even one webmaster that wouldn't like to have $50/month profit from every website he/she builds that required no update within 6 months.

I think one of the problems that I made when I first started out and that I see many others do is pretty much what you described: that it's a hit everything and see what works type strategy. Being an engineer you realize that there is a logical order to doing things. With all due respect, if you are doing too many different things you are being a jack of many trades and master of none. It sounds from your posts like you acknowledge this and that is what is causing you frustration.

Perhaps try picking no more than 5 type sites to build and focus on those for 3-6 months along with no more than 1-2 sponsors for each site and then evaluate your income compared to now. I think any new campaign takes a minimum of 90 days to find out the results and could be as much as 180 days or more to really see if something is working that well.

I think it's too easy to get frustrated a couple weeks into a plan and change gears. That isn't enough time to work something through.

It's ok to get frustrated, but giving up cannot be an option. I think maybe the problem is that you are spread too thin doing what too many others are trying to do. So pick niches and try some newer/different/not as saturated site types (blogs for instance) which aren't the normal, recommended way of doing things.

And, if possible, please get your buns out to Script School Radio every Friday from 2-4pm PST and call into the show and we'll help you brainstorm ideas to make more $$$. I practically beg for folks to call in every week and very few people take advantage of this. Some have told me that the reason why is that they don't want to look stupid.

I've seen this same excuse for posting to these messageboards and visiting IRC chats/workshops.

I tell you what, when I have questions I don't care about looking stupid, I go where the answers are and ask away. When one starts worrying about how he/she looks to others, they've lost sight of what is ultimately important in business: the bottom line.

The bottom line is the bottom line so if you want to make more money there are only a few ways to do it:

1) generate more money from existing customers through better/enhanced service, more targeted products/services, etc.
2) spend less, reducing expenses and thereby increasing profit.
3) use programs/programming to automate repetitive tasks that do not require direct human intervention/involvement. (Script School can help you here)
$$ 4) increase the number of customers (traffic)

Notice that #4 is the well known most expensive way of growing a business and the place where often most business owner's resources are spent. Business owners think that the solution is to increase the traffic to the door but if folks come to the door and there isn't anything they are interested in buying then they will leave without buying. Therefore the ultimate goal isn't only to get more people to the door, it is to get more of the right type of people to the door.

So perhaps instead of broadening the scope of what you are doing, it's time to rope it in and concentrate on less than 5 different main activities every day in your business. Learning and sharing findings with others, IMO, should be one of those five activities.

You are well on your way with this thread, best of luck to you in your biz.

What are blogs? from www.leenoga.com

"One of the concerns of webmasters is that some blogs are clogging up the search results, reducing the listings of legitimate sites."

Blogs are short for "weblogs" In my blog here yesterday: http://www.tdavids.com/blogger/ I answered this question in depth, so check that for links to many articles about them.

A company by the name of Pyra Labs started the blogging phenomenon and in May of this year Google acquired them, infusing the company with $$$$ so they could improve the service and so that Google could start integrating into their products (as they are doing with the new Google Toolbar).

One of the concerns of webmasters is that some blogs are clogging up the search results, reducing the listings of legitimate sites. Some of the rumours that are being floated around include Google doing the following:

1) making a separate search like they do for images
2) reducing the value of blogs -- once identified -- so that other sites will raise above them in search results
3) adding a blog filter which is on by default which will filter out, or attempt to filter out blogs

It's easy to setup your own blog. In this step by step tutorial, I show you how (Script School Surfer Interaction Course July 16, 2002)

Features at Adult Netsurprise messageboards webmasters can use from www.adultnetsurprise.com

"During the course of your normal business conversations there are some additional things you can do to enhance your postings and bring more attention to your posts and thus your business & website(s). "

There are numerous features that webmasters can use to their advantage when posting at the Adult Netsurprise messageboards.

This thread will hopefully help those who are newer and don't yet know or fully realize what they can do when they are making posts here, or to remind those who have been around awhile what tools are at their disposal.

During the course of your normal business conversations there are some additional things you can do to enhance your postings and bring more attention to your posts and thus your business & website(s).

If anybody is interested, then we can go through some specific ideas and examples in this thread.

Initially these posting levels were released as experimental, but since that time we've made it wide open (no posting levels to use any of the bonus features) and one interesting thing is that webmasters haven't really been using the thumbs and full-sized pictures and voice posting any more than when they had to attain the posting levels to be able to use them

Therefore actual webmaster usage has indicated that there wasn't a whole lot of incentive in posting more just to be able to use these special functions/features, so why require a certain number of posts to be able to use a function?

We learned this from the group response and adjusted accordingly, thus the requirement for attaining certain posting levels to be able to use certain posting bonus features was unlocked and made available to everybody when they register anew at ANS.

It's interesting that a few webmasters said that they wished they could use the features when they were not available to them, but pretty much none of those same folks that complained have been using the features once they became available to them LOL

Try using any/all of the features and see for yourself what you are able to do.

These bonus features provide registered ANS members in good standing with many opportunities to market themselves and their websites during their networking/posting efforts here at ANS using the following features:

- linkable 120x60 thumbs with user-defined customizable captions
- create and share categorized thumb galleries with others
- full size pictures embedded in the posts (threaded view only, just a link in the flat view)
- add videos to posts
- voice/audio posting capability. You can post in your own voice to add some extra "feeling" to certain posts that might require it, perhaps share a snippet of what you are listening to, or an interesting sound. You can download a current version of the AN controller here (just released version 0.2.2, btw)

None of these features are new with this post or anything, I'm just recapping them for the good of the group and to catch the new folks up on some of what is currently available for use as of the time of this post.

You can also do a search on the board for the keyword "version" or "v2" and you'll turn up more posts regarding various version upgrades like this one:

v2.1 upgrade

Voice signatures are another great, personalized way to tell people -- in your own voice -- what you do on the web.

For an example of what a voice signature is, just click on the play button next to my name or on somebody else's here who already has one

Voice signatures are not new either and have been available since the audioboard was released.

What is new is that when you have a voice signature now it will show up next to your name with every post.

To add your own voice signature, just use the AN Controller

I hope this is helpful in sharing what can be done while you are having your normal business conversations at ANS