Thoughts on paid partner submitter accounts for wanktube

[_LB_]

Hey guys, was after some feedback on something I have been thinking about for some time now regarding my site www.wanktube.com

Toying with low cost paid Partner submitter accounts much like with the tgps. Its not to make more money, so would be a pretty nominal amount, its more to tackle some of the problems we are starting to see with submits.

- Some submitters are spamming us with upwards of 50 submits a day. This makes it very hard for other submitters to get their videos through, especially larger ones.

- Many sponsors don't want their content on our site (eg topbucks, TCG). Its a lot of work vetting the submits and removing the content from submitters who don't read the exclusion list and don't seem to give a damn about their sponsor's wishes.

- Some content is submitted without permission. At the moment there is nothing to stop someone signing up with another username using a proxy once they get banned for repeatedly using content they don't have permission to use.

The only problem i can see is it kind of limits the real amateur content posted because what amateur is going to pay to share their content ?

Any thoughts or suggestions ?

[Jroach]

Maybe create a sign-up form, to have a webmaster go thru the appropriate steps to getting their videos uploaded? Perhaps have them provide some samples and all that, then have them confirm via email their account.. basically weed out most spammers, and when they break the rules revoke their account. Or like you say just have paid accounts, that will break nearly all the bullshit, but you have a good point about amateurs not wanting to pay.

Perhaps offer a year long pass, for like $20 bucks or something. That way you make some coin, weed out the cheaters, and get a good lineup of submits?

Jay

[Georgie]

Realistically you might need to get more average views to the videos before going the PA route. With other tubes that routinely drive 10K views in a couple of days (real views, not cheats, as determined by the return traffic) you could end up with too few submissions, which could turn away surfers. It's certainly something to think about once the traffic increases.

If you do go the PA route, please consider more than payment just by ePass.

While I have you...I'm not sure I understand how the channels work on WT. In most of the tube sites, going to a channel shows the top/recent videos, and then you can click a More button to see the rest. So, say I click on the Amateurs channel. I get a page with 15 videos: most active users (as a surfer I dislike these the most as they tend to be the shorter, more spammy submits), most recent, and most viewed. But I can't see a way to see the rest of the videos. Or have I whacked off so much that I really AM blind?

[Head Boy]

Well I'm not a WnakTube submitter, but, as you know LB, I have to stick my nose in everything, so here are my uninformed suggestions.

Have a small fee submitter account for porn webmasters.

Use a script to filter the content owned by sponsors who ask for exclusion.

Have a forum for amateurs to discuss their submissions and those of others, and make free submissions dependant on forum involvement.

Set a max of 1 submission per day for non-partner members.

[mikesinner]

How does a webmaster get anything from a site like this? I mean the only benefit I can see from submitting videos would be from watermarks that would direct the surfer to your blog or free site and I think most sponsors wouldn't allow this.

[fresh]

TCG started allowing tube submits month or so ago

[AbsolutePorn]

I agree with a Paid Submitter account! Count me in!

[Globofun]

That's a good idea LB!

I will take an account for sure, especially that I will need exposure for some projects in 2008!

[facialfreak]

...15 characters

[Panky]

Just because someone pays for an account, doesn't mean the BS is going to stop. People, in general, tend to think because they pay for account, it entitles them to get listings no matter what they submit. All paid accounts allow you to do is pay for scripts and/or for reviewers to approve or decline listings. It won't decrease the garbage. With paid accounts, people will come to expect a level of traffic from your site, expect everything to be listed, and will complain if their expectations are not met regardless of how much you explain to them that there are multiple factors involved or that rules may have been broken. Because they paid for an account, they will have expectations much more so than just a standard partner account.

Open the site up for partner submitters and not just random submitters. Give the submitter clear rules to follow. If the rules are broken, disable or suspend the account. Without charging for submits, the submitter won't feel as though they wasted their money should their expectations not be met. All you are doing is giving them permission to take your site for a test drive. If it is working for them, all is good. If it isn't working for them, no one lost anything. You still receive content for the site and the submitter still receives a chance to earn sales, traffic, branding,... One for one. If you charge for a pass, the submitters expectations increases and if those expectations have not been met, whether reasonable or unreasonable, problems may arise.

One thing charging for a submit pass / partner account won't due is help with your problem of abuse and garbage submits. Only good scripts and good reviewers can help you with that problem. Many people abuse paid accounts and/or submit complete garbage. Then they expect it to be listed because they paid.

You don't need to pay good reviewers. You can exchange listings for their time. Work out a deal that way.

Charging for accounts can help pay for operating expenses, scripts, and support/customer service personnel, but just be aware that it can create additional work and headaches.

[_LB_]

Originally Posted by Georgie

Realistically you might need to get more average views to the videos before going the PA route. With other tubes that routinely drive 10K views in a couple of days (real views, not cheats, as determined by the return traffic) you could end up with too few submissions, which could turn away surfers. It's certainly something to think about once the traffic increases.

If you do go the PA route, please consider more than payment just by ePass.

While I have you...I'm not sure I understand how the channels work on WT. In most of the tube sites, going to a channel shows the top/recent videos, and then you can click a More button to see the rest. So, say I click on the Amateurs channel. I get a page with 15 videos: most active users (as a surfer I dislike these the most as they tend to be the shorter, more spammy submits), most recent, and most viewed. But I can't see a way to see the rest of the videos. Or have I whacked off so much that I really AM blind?

Yeah at the moment I think even though traffic is up and climbing, the views and resulting click throughs aren't as I would have liked them. Take a look at sites like youporn which only post a few videos a day but the traffic those videos get is pretty impressive. Ok they allow far too long clips and stolen shit, but thats not the point. I think by allowing less people to do a more moderate number of submits ... we have enough new content coming in to keep surfers happy and the submitters get more traffic back for their efforts.

The main plus to me being able to keep the spammers down and those submitting stuff they have no right to submit.

As for the channels, we use them as niches. Eg you choose which channel you want your video to appear in and if you are interested in that particular niche then you can click on it and browse the videos. I know its a departure from youtube style channels.

[_LB_]

Originally Posted by Panky

Just because someone pays for an account, doesn't mean the BS is going to stop. People, in general, tend to think because they pay for account, it entitles them to get listings no matter what they submit. All paid accounts allow you to do is pay for scripts and/or for reviewers to approve or decline listings. It won't decrease the garbage. With paid accounts, people will come to expect a level of traffic from your site, expect everything to be listed, and will complain if their expectations are not met regardless of how much you explain to them that there are multiple factors involved or that rules may have been broken. Because they paid for an account, they will have expectations much more so than just a standard partner account.

Open the site up for partner submitters and not just random submitters. Give the submitter clear rules to follow. If the rules are broken, disable or suspend the account. Without charging for submits, the submitter won't feel as though they wasted their money should their expectations not be met. All you are doing is giving them permission to take your site for a test drive. If it is working for them, all is good. If it isn't working for them, no one lost anything. You still receive content for the site and the submitter still receives a chance to earn sales, traffic, branding,... One for one. If you charge for a pass, the submitters expectations increases and if those expectations have not been met, whether reasonable or unreasonable, problems may arise.

One thing charging for a submit pass / partner account won't due is help with your problem of abuse and garbage submits. Only good scripts and good reviewers can help you with that problem. Many people abuse paid accounts and/or submit complete garbage. Then they expect it to be listed because they paid.

You don't need to pay good reviewers. You can exchange listings for their time. Work out a deal that way.

Charging for accounts can help pay for operating expenses, scripts, and support/customer service personnel, but just be aware that it can create additional work and headaches.

Fair points panky but most apply to TGPs.

This is a totally different traffic model, and traffic will be less from videos, though it lasts for a lot longer. On the other hand while a tgp gallery might convert at 1:800, a tube video often converts at 1:100.

Also another point worth noting is that they would automatically be listed... same with most other tube sites.

But thanks again for your input, some things for me to think about

[_LB_]

Originally Posted by AbsolutePorn

I agree with a Paid Submitter account! Count me in!

Love the enthusiasm!!

Though this probably wouldn't be short term, and I am just dipping my toe in the pond to see if it gets bitten off before I go seriously considering it

[SleazyBear]

Simple, Get 7 to 10 webmasters together to do approvals, give them some form of trade, maybe a banner slot, or create an area just for there sponsor links, maybe up top on every page. Give them a time of day in there time zone for maybe 4 hours and 3 days a week, this way the video's get approved and up in a decent time frame..

[Paul Markham]

Originally Posted by SleazyBear

Simple, Get 7 to 10 webmasters together to do approvals, give them some form of trade, maybe a banner slot, or create an area just for there sponsor links, maybe up top on every page. Give them a time of day in there time zone for maybe 4 hours and 3 days a week, this way the video's get approved and up in a decent time frame..

Best idea so far.

LB I have one of our videos on your most viewed page, your traffic is not good enough to pay for. In fact it's hardly worth the time to submit for us. Maybe it's only good enough for an auto submitter.

So others are becoming a problem and you can't manage it. Running a Tube site is not easy. So let's charge for people to submit to a site where the most prominent ads are yours so you can earn from it. Great idea. Can the paid partner have his banner alongside yours?

Honestly can you imagine the response if I had suggested this? Think honestly and forget the name of the poster and think of the idea.

You can't manage it the way it's run. So partner accounts with approved people only. 50 submits a day is easy to stop, limit them to the number of submits. It might be it's only worth submitting to these site with an automated program running in the back ground and no labour but losing the content might be the downside.

I know everyone will flame me but think of what you would of said if I had come up with this idea.

[Adriaan]

Originally Posted by _LB_

- Many sponsors don't want their content on our site (eg topbucks, TCG). Its a lot of work vetting the submits and removing the content from submitters who don't read the exclusion list and don't seem to give a damn about their sponsor's wishes.

Check your pm LB, I have a question for you about Topbucks content on wanktube

[nekrom]

Close it to outside submits & hire in house workers from In/Ru.
Or charge $200 a pop per pa, problem solved.

-N

[Georgie]

Originally Posted by _LB_

As for the channels, we use them as niches. Eg you choose which channel you want your video to appear in and if you are interested in that particular niche then you can click on it and browse the videos. I know its a departure from youtube style channels.

Is there a way to add "More" buttons to the channels? I think that might help some of the view counts. The channel pages as you have them pretty much guarantee the same videos are shown to surfers each time, if they don't want to go through all of them from the Watch button.

It also pretty much guarantees the top viewed videos will always be the top viewed videos, regardless of their quality, or the quality of others.

We know success in tubes is all about view counts. IMO, the more you can make all the videos easily browsable in the channels (really, niches) the more chance all the videos will get improved view counts. With better view counts, you can ask for and get paid PAs.

Just my opinion, of course.

[Georgie]

Originally Posted by _LB_

On the other hand while a tgp gallery might convert at 1:800, a tube video often converts at 1:100.

I think we should probably clarify for those just learning about tubes: the 1:100 conversion (about average in my experience) is the conversion ratio for people who actually go to the Web site promoted in the clip. The conversion ratio of clip views to paid signups is probably much more in line with a TGP. The difference is that someone else is paying for the bandwidth, so we don't pay as much attention to the number of times the video was viewed.

Case in point for me: I had a video recently on a tube site that got 140K views in two days. With a 1:100 conversion that would have been 1,400 signups, and I'm sad to say that didn't happen. I did, though, get about 2K uniques from the 140K views, and of those uniques I got better than 1:100.

[seeandsee]