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How To Use Twitter

September 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

How To Use Twitter For Website Operators

Personal quote from me: “#1 rule of success in the adult web biz: Pay attention to the ones that pay attention to you!”

What’s Twitter Anyway?

Twitter is an information and social network made up of 140-character messages called Tweets. It’s a new and easy way to discover the latest news (“what’s happening”) related to subjects you care about.

How is Twitter Useful?

  • Branding: You can use to twitter to help build you as “A Brand” i.e. marketing your website!
  • Feedback: Twitter is a great way for your fans to provide your feedback and interact with them.
  • Dispense Information: Twitter is a GREAT way to provide your fans and friends information on what you doing.
  • Gain More Friends: With twitter you can drastically expand your network of friends and hence potential members to your site.
  • Gain Traffic: Since Twitter allows you to post a URL on your profile you can post a link to your site.
  • Google / Bing Juice: One of the reasons it’s good to have an active twitter account is because both Google and Bing give Social networks a high priority in their searches.

Twitter Hints & Tips

  • If you have twitter on your site USE IT! Nothing is more of a turn off than going to a girls Twitter page and finding that she’s not posted in 3 months or only posts once or twice a month. If you do not using it take it off your site!
  • Learn To Use Twitter Lists: You can categorize your followers into lists and it’s a GREAT way to keep up with people. For example, I have lists like “Dreamnet” with only Dreamnet people on it, “Tech Fun” which all the technology people I follow and so on. Make’s it easy to filter out what do and don’t want to see.
  • FOLLOW people that follow you! Your fans (i.e. followers) are taking time out of their lives to pay attention to you. So you should follow them back and show interest in them. If someone is allowing you to post to their twitter stream you should give the courtesy back and allow them to post to yours.
  • Pay ATTENTION to your @ tweets. If someone @ tweets you. This means they are talking DIRECTLY to you! Have the courtesy to reply to them. If you don’t you look stuck up like you don’t care.
  • What Are Hashtags (“#” Symbols)?  The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.
  • Hashtags: helping you find interesting Tweets: (1) People use the hashtag symbol # before relevant keywords in their Tweet to categorize those Tweets to show more easily in Twitter Search. (2) Clicking on a hashtagged word in any message shows you all other Tweets in that category. (3) Hashtags can occur anywhere in the Tweet. (4) Hashtagged words that become very popular are often Trending Topics. Example tweet with hastag: Today I posted an new picture set with #bigtits stop by and see it!
  • RT i.e. retweeting: Like a Tweet? Retweet! Sometimes you come across a Tweet that you just have to share. Twitter’s Retweet (otherwise known as “RT”) feature helps you and others quickly share that Tweet with all of your followers.  Retweeting is IMPORTANT as it helps you expand your network!
  • DO NOT follow spammers. Some will follow you only to “spam”. When someone follows you look at their twitter stream before you follow them back, if it’s just a bunch of spamming and links don’t follow them.
  • Ensure your Twitter Stream is “unprotected”! By default when you setup Twitter your stream is protected so no one can see it. You want it unprotected so it’s open for all the search engines.
  • Twitter is not chat! There is nothing more annoying that following somebody who “chats” on twitter. If you want to have a full conversation with someone do not use your public twitter. If you do want to chat via Twitter do it via direct messaging or better yet use a proper chat medium like instant messaging or email.
  • Do not spam your followers. Yes we all are promoting something everyone knows that. But if all you are doing is tweeting out “come see me on cam” or “come see my new update” it’s a major turn off.  It’s fine to promote but if that is all you do then Twitter is worthless.
  • Share your real life. The interesting thing about twitter is that it gives you a little insight into peoples real lives. So tweet out every day stuff about what you are doing. Don’t over do it, but just make it interesting.
  • Share your real thoughts. Tweet out your opinions don’t be bashful, once again that provides insight to your personality!
  • Don’t tweet excessively. Nothing is more annoying that someone that tweets ever two minutes.
  • Learn to use twitter on your mobile devices. If you have a normal phone you can tweet via text messaging. Go into your mobile settings on Twitter and set up! If you have a smart phone, almost of them have Twitter client software in which you can tweet from your phone.
  • Post pictures on Twitter. Learn to post pictures for your followers. I personally love the pictures! Not just pictures from your web site, the best Twitter pictures are the candid ones. You at the Gym, you in the changing room, stuff when you are out and about running errands, pictures when your traveling etc.!
  • Use a URL Shortener: Since twitter is only 140 characters a URL shortener is needed when you tweet out links. I prefer Bit.ly because it gives me tons of great stats on who is clicking on what!
  • To Get the Most out of Twitter use one of the twitter clients that run on your desktop or smart phone: Smart Phone Apps from Twitter, Best Windows Apps for Twitter, Best Mac Apps for Twitter.
Filed Under: Advice For Webgirls, Webmaster Update Tagged With: ,

RIP Clarence Clemons

June 20, 2011 By 1 Comment

Born To Run Cover with Clarence

Rob’s Thoughts:

I wanted to say a few things about the death of Clarence Clemons. The passing of this man has had a profound effect on me and truly made me reflect about my life the past 24 hours. I believe the reason is because Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band was the first band I called “mine” as young teenager. I was turned on to them by a older college guy I worked with. At the age of 15 none of my other friends had ever heard of Springsteen and he was not popular where I grew up in rural Ohio. But I became an evangelist of his music and told everyone I knew how great it was. Over time all my buddies grew to love him.

Once I turned 16 me and my buddies would run the back roads of rural southern Ohio listening to Bruce and his songs of escape, redemption and positivity. I still remember all these times like it was yesterday and I watch the corn fields roll by as we listened Born to Run and Darkness On The Edge of Town. It truly helped shape our lives and our thoughts.

Over the past 33 years I have listened to everything Bruce has produced. I have over 500 of his songs in my iTunes library. Through all the years of growing up and all the different genres of music, I have listened Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band and they have NEVER left my side.

I was lucky enough enough to see Clarence play with Bruce on several occasions. Look at this ticket I saved from July 26, 1981. It only cost $12.50 to see him play for 4 hours. The show went on past mid-night!

My Ticket From 1981

It was Clarence Clemons that Bruce always feed off of in the shows. It was their chemistry that made the E Street Band so much fun to see. They just worked off of each other and Clarence Clemons was that beacon of light that ALWAYS kept the crowd smiling.

One of my favorite shows was when I saw Bruce in 1986 with Dawn Marie in Cleveland, Oh. Cleveland was always one of the bands favorite places to play and it was an extraordinary show. Dawn Marie and I managed to get seats WAY up front and it was the closest I ever got to the stage. I believe we were in row 13.

Finally, I was lucking enough in 2009 to get Nils Lofgren tickets for show because of my buddy Jack’s ownership in Mudd Guitars. It was the last time I saw them and will be the last time ever seeing Clarence Clemons. Mudd does custom guitar work for Nils Lofgren and got the hookup in the “band seats” as well as pass into the Meet & Greet. Unfortunately everything was running behind schedule so the Meet and Greet never happened but it was still a fantastic night all in all! Here a few pictures.

2009 Ticket

Our Nils Lofgren Passes

Clarence On Stage In 2009

Mudd, Mad Jack Myself in our seats

I want to conclude by saying Rest In Peace Clarence Clemons! You along with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have impacted my life more than you know and you will be missed. Your death will be one of the markers in my life I don’t forget as it has made me realize that I am aging and how we all get older!

From Bruce himself:

It is with overwhelming sadness that we inform our friends and fans that at 7:00 tonight, Saturday, June 18, our beloved friend and bandmate, Clarence Clemons passed away. The cause was complications from his stroke of last Sunday, June 12th.

Bruce Springsteen said of Clarence: Clarence lived a wonderful life. He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage. His loss is immeasurable and we are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly forty years. He was my great friend, my partner, and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band.

From: Associated Press writer Wayne Parry in Asbury Park, N.J., contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — Clarence Clemons, the larger-than-life saxophone player for the E Street Band who was one of the key influences in Bruce Springsteen’s life and music through four decades, has died. He was 69.

Clemons died Saturday night after being hospitalized about a week ago following a stroke at his home in Singer Island, Fla.

Springsteen acknowledged the dire situation earlier this week, but said then he was hopeful. He called the loss “immeasurable.”

“We are honored and thankful to have known him and had the opportunity to stand beside him for nearly 40 years,” Springsteen said on his website. “He was my great friend, my partner and with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music. His life, his memory, and his love will live on in that story and in our band.”

Known as the Big Man for his imposing 6-foot-5-inch, 270-plus pound frame, Clemons and his ever-present saxophone spent much of his life with The Boss, and his booming saxophone solos became a signature sound for the E Street Band on many key songs, including “Jungleland,” a triumphant solo he spent 16 hours perfecting, and “Born To Run.”

In recent years, Clemons had been slowed by health woes. He endured major spinal surgery in January 2010 and, at the 2009 Super Bowl, Clemons rose from a wheelchair to perform with Springsteen after double knee replacement surgery.

But his health seemed to be improving. In May, he performed with Lady Gaga on the season finale of “American Idol,” and performed on two songs on her “Born This Way” album. Just this week, Lady Gaga’s video with Clemons, “The Edge of Glory,” debuted.

Clemons said in a 2010 interview with The Associated Press then that he was winning his battles — including severe, chronic pain and post-surgical depression. His sense of humor helped.

“Of all the surgeries I’ve had, there’s not much left to operate on. I am totally bionic,” he said.

“God will give you no more than you can handle,” he said in the interview. “This is all a test to see if you are really ready for the good things that are going to come in your life. All this pain is going to come back and make me stronger.”

Outside The Stone Pony, the legendary Asbury Park, N.J., rock club where Springsteen, Clemons and other E Street Band members cut their teeth in the 1970s, Phil Kuntz stopped to place a small yellow flower on a decorative white fence. Nearby, someone taped a handwritten sign that read simply “RIP Big Man.”

“I’ll never hear ‘Jungleland’ played live again, and that’s a bummer,” said Kuntz, 51, who had seen Clemons perform with Springsteen in excess of 200 times.

Caroline O’Toole, The Stone Pony’s general manager, called it “a sad day for Asbury Park.”

“He was ‘the Big Man’ but he was an even bigger man here,” she said. “His presence was just enormous and unbelievable. No one who has ever played at our club in all the decades was ever like him.”

John D’Esposito, a talent buyer for the concert promoter Live Nation, also stopped by the club.

“Asbury Park is crying right now,” he said. “It’s like the whole city is one big teardrop. Our Pied Piper is gone.”

Reaction came from across the entertainment industry.

“Clarence Clemons was an electric, generous, sweet spirit. Taught me how to look cool with a sax. Goodbye Big Man,” tweeted actor Rob Lowe.

Added Questlove, drummer for the Roots: “RIP Clarence Clemons. A True Legend. Will be absolutely missed.”

An original member — and the oldest member — of the E Street Band, Clemons also performed with the Grateful Dead, the Jerry Garcia Band, and Ringo Starr’s All Star Band. He recorded with a wide range of artists including Aretha Franklin, Roy Orbison and Jackson Browne. He also had his own band called the Temple of Soul.

The stage “always feels like home. It’s where I belong,” Clemons, a former youth counselor, said after performing at a Hard Rock Cafe benefit for Home Safe, a children’s charity, in 2010.

Born in Norfolk, Va., Clemons was the grandson of a Baptist minister and began playing the saxophone when he was 9.

“Nobody played instruments in my family. My father got that bug and said he wants his son to play saxophone. I wanted an electric train for Christmas, but he got me a saxophone. I flipped out,” he said in a 1989 interview with the AP.

He was influenced by R&B artists such as King Curtis and Junior Walker. But his dreams originally focused on football. He played for Maryland State College, and was to try out for the Cleveland Browns when he got in a bad car accident that made him retire from the sport for good.

His energies then focused on music.

In 1971, Clemons was playing with Norman Seldin & the Joyful Noise when he heard about rising singer-songwriter named Springsteen, who was from New Jersey. The two hit it off immediately and Clemons officially joined the E Street Band in 1973 with the release of the debut album “Greetings from Asbury Park.”

Clemons emerged as one of the most critical members of the E Street Band for different reasons. His burly frame would have been intimidating if not for his bright smile and endearing personality that charmed fans.

“It’s because of my innocence,” he said in a 2003 AP interview. “I have no agenda — just to be loved. Somebody said to me, ‘Whenever somebody says your name, a smile comes to their face.’ That’s a great accolade. I strive to keep it that way.”

But it was his musical contributions on tenor sax that would come to define the E Street Band sound.

“Since 1973 the Springsteen/Clemons partnership has reaped great rewards and created insightful, high energy rock & roll,” declared Don Palmer in Down Beat in 1984. “Their music, functioning like the blues from which it originated, chronicled the fears, aspirations, and limitations of suburban youth. Unlike many musicians today, Springsteen and Clemons were more interested in the heart and substance rather than the glamour of music.”

In a 2009 interview, Clemons described his deep bond with Springsteen, saying: “It’s the most passion that you have without sex.”

“It’s love. It’s two men — two strong, very virile men — finding that space in life where they can let go enough of their masculinity to feel the passion of love and respect and trust,” he added.

Clemons continued to perform with the band for the next 12 years, contributing his big, distinctive big sound to the albums, “The Wild, The Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle,” ”Born to Run,” ”Darkness on the Edge of Town, “The River” and “Born in the USA.” But four years after Springsteen experienced the blockbuster success of “Born in the USA” and toured with his group, he decided to disband the E Street Band.

“There were a few moments of tension,” the saxophonist recalled in a 1995 interview. “You’ve been together 18, 19 years. It’s like your wife coming to you: ‘I want a divorce.’ You start wondering why? Why? But you get on with your life.”

During the breaks, Clemons continued with solo projects, including a 1985 vocal duet with Browne on the single “You’re a Friend of Mine” and saxophone work on Franklin’s 1985 hit single “Freeway of Love.” He released his own albums, toured, and even sang on some songs.

Clemons also made several television and movie appearances over the years, including Martin Scorsese’s 1977 musical, “New York, New York, in which he played a trumpet player.

The break with Springsteen and the E Street Band didn’t end his relationship with either Springsteen or the rest of the band members, nor would it turn out to be permanent. By 1999 they were back together for a reunion tour and the release of “The Rising.”

But the years took a toll on Clemons’ body, and he had to play through the pain of surgeries and other health woes.

“It takes a village to run the Big Man — a village of doctors,” Clemons told The Associated Press in a phone interview in 2010. “I’m starting to feel better; I’m moving around a lot better.”

He published a memoir, “Big Man: Real Life and Tall Tales,” in 2009 and continued to perform.

He is the second member of the E Street Band to pass away: In 2008, Danny Federici, the keyboardist for the band, died at age 58 of melanoma.

Filed Under: General, Webmaster Update Tagged With: ,

Boston Bruins Win!

June 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Zdeno Chára Holding Stanley Cup

I wanted to say a few things about this Years Stanley Cup Playoffs!

First and foremost I want to say my primary hockey allegiance is with the Detroit Red Wings. I was born in Detroit and will forever be a die hard Wings fan. With that said I have a lot of allegiance to the Boston Bruins also. You see when I was just a little boy and my father first started taking me to hockey games it was the at the height of the ‘72 Bruins championship run. With names like Bobby Orr and Phil Espisito I really developed a love of hockey which I have rekindled the past few years. I had the ‘72 Bruins trading cards, I had their pictures on my bedroom walls and I became addicted to hockey. By this time I lived in Ohio and we used to always go out on our ice covered streets and ponds in the winter and play hockey. Sometimes we even played on the blacktop in our tennis shoes. All the boys in neighborhood loved the Bruins back then.

This had to be one of the best Stanley Cup finals I’ve ever seen. Going all the way down to game 7 made it super exciting. In 118 years of the Stanley Cup only 21 series have went to a game 7! I really thought Vancouver was going to pull it off in their home arena because of the 21 game 7’s only 2 away teams have won. But Boston’s goalie Tim Thomas was just unbelievable! He stopped anything and everything that came near the goal. Only giving up 8 goals in 7 games.

I am a little sad because I have several Canadian friends and I know how bad they wanted to win because Canada has not had the cup since Montreal won it in 1992 and Canada is, after all, the home of Hockey. But forever reason one of the greatest goalies in the NHL Roberto Luongo of Vancouver struggled throughout this series and gave up 22 goals.

Another bit of trivia 6’9” Zdeno Chára (Slovakia) is only the second European to ever to hoist the Stanley Cup as team captain. Nicklas Lidstrom (Sweden) of the Detroit Red Wings was the first.

But all in all it was a fantastic series and after 40 years the Bruins have the Stanley Cup again!

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Optimizing Your Site For SEO and More!

April 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

In February I attended a WordCamp Phoenix event with Mad Jack and last week I attended The Phoenix Forum with Dawn Marie. The Phoenix Forum is the best Adult Webmaster Event every year and many of our industries top earners and performers are there. I won’t bore you with the social stuff, but other than hanging with some very cool web girls, their hubbies and website operators we also learned a great deal to improve Dreamnet.

Here is some information that will help you earn more and have a better website. I have combined WordCamp Phoenix and The Phoenix Forum notes into one here because much of them overlap. Many of the items below I have learned for the first time or have change over the years so I’ll be working to make all our sites as search friendly as possible.

Some of you will understand all of this and some will not, for those you that don’t understand it look at as an opportunity to learn.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

  • SEO means making sure your site is ranked in the search engines like Google and Bing.
  • Page Title Tag that is the information at the top of every web page. Title tags should be a maximum of 60 characters. When you search Google the Title Tag is what is displayed in the first line of the result in blue!
  • Page Title Tag should be a call to action. Example: See Hot MILF Sucking Cock!
  • Page Title Tag does NOT need the URL of the domain in it. It’s redundant the search engine knows what site it is on.
  • Page Description Meta Tag should be no more than 160 characters.
  • Page Description Meta Tag should be different from the title tag and give a longer description of what is found on even given page.
  • Page Description Meta Tag is what you see in a Google Search just below the blue clickable link. So it needs to be honest and catch the viewers attention.
  • Page Keywords Meta Tag are no longer valued very highly for the search results. But they are still used. Keywords should be no more than 8 words.
  • All search engines will compare what you put in your Title, Description and Keywords and those words should be used in your site. It compares them to make sure your not scamming. For example, if you have “midgets” in your keywords but then never post any midget content the search engines figure that out and will devalue your site.
  • Writing! I’ve said this again and again! WORDS MATTER search engines like words. If you are one person that don’t like to type and put very few words in your site it is going to hurt you, it’s that plain and simple. The importance of writing is why I always want you to have stories with your picture sets and videos.
  • The H1 Tag is IMPORTANT. Search engines LOVE the heading 1 tag. I have personally started this week putting the H1 tag at the top of all your picture sets and where it uses titles of sets or pages.
  • Discount Codes – In this day of Group On, Living Social and about 100 other bargain sites out there having a discount code on your site will help it with search engines. Use words like “Discount Code” or “Promo Code” and have it in your site. Honestly I am not sure how to use this yet on Dreamnet but I am going to come up with a way so we are all making money using terms like that.
  • Your Social Graph – I am putting this in it’s own section because it’s a big topic. But understand that your social graph is HIGHLY important to your online success in this day and age. The Search engines put A LOT of weight on them. Your Social graph is how far you reach people and how people reach you through social networking via sites like Twitter, Facebook, Fubar and all the other social networks. Of course Twitter and FB are very highly ranked. For example, there is direct network connection between Twitter and Google databases so those interactions are updated daily. Bottom Line here is social networking is VERY important in today’s search engine results.
  • Use Blogs – Blogging is one of the best ways to get your self noticed. Have your own blog and use other’s blogs. Why are blogs so important. Because they have words.

Your Sites & Your Customers

  • Exploit your email list – gather as many email addresses as you can and email your customers news, updates and sales material. Quite frankly this is something I have been bad at and I am going to get going again. I am going to get the Dreamnet News Letter going again. And advertise that all future promotions will be ONLY be via email to encourage people to sign up for them.
  • The dreaded Tube Sites. This was a HUGE topic at the event. Most believe the tube sites are killing the business. However, on the flip side of this using them correctly can really increase your sales. Think of Tube Sites as the new TGP and plant 3 minute movies on them that lead to your sites, but don’t give away the cumshots LOL!
  • Take surveys of your customers and see what they like. They recommended the Survey Monkey site.
  • Let customers Interact. One thing Dawn Marie and I have experimented with since last September is using WordPress on her free site. There is like a million plugins you can get, but the bottom line is people can Interact with her via her site by commenting on sets, ranking sets, surveys, reading her blog, reading her twitter and all sorts of little things. It has been a success I believe and I want to roll out more of them on Dreamnet.
  • EMAIL your Cancelled/Expired Members. You always get an email form CCBill when one for your clients accounts expire. Email them something to lure them back. Dawn Marie and I are going to start doing it this week. We are going to setup a certain lower price membership for them. The bottom line is get a plan in place that you can use to retain members that cancel. Ask them why they cancelled; was it a money issue, where they bored with your site or whatever.
  • Add bonus content to your club. I am looking into this now for all of us. Some way to add bonus content to our clubs so your members get your club plus something more.
  • Bottom line with this is way I’ve always said. Some do it well and some don’t do it all. But INTERACTION with you clients is VERY IMPORTANT. Whether a current member, a canceling member or a non-member your interaction with them is important. I always stress the Dreamnet Forum and Twitter but probably less than 1/2 the women take the time to learn and use those tools. If all that you do is respond to email you are certainly losing out.

Well that is all for now hopefully this gets some conversation going. Ask if you have questions there is no stupid question except the one that goes unasked.

 

Filed Under: Advice For Webgirls, Webmaster Update

Rob Meets Aria Giovanni

April 2, 2011 By 1 Comment

Yes believe it or not even I sometime get a little star struck. The past 3 days I have attended The Phoenix Forum which is one of the best Adult Webmaster conventions every year. Other than the business side of things you get to meet and hang out with lots of cool people. Throughout my life I have been fortunate enough to meet a lot of famous people from pro-motorcycle racers, to famous rock star musicians and even a president! But who I was able to meet last night was fantastic. Aria Giovanni attended the The Phoenix Forum and as we were drinking beers in the courtyard I saw her sitting across the way. Well it just so happened that Chica ( www.ChicasPlace.com ) and her hubby were drinking with us. Chica’s hubby had photographed Aria before so he took me over to meet Aria Giovanni, I was over the moon!

This was one of those times I was actually a little star struck. You see even though I’m an adult webmaster, I am still human and there are women I see online that I just fall for like any guys does. Aria Giovanni for me is one of those women. So getting to meet her last night was a real special treat for me. Believe me I have spent my share of “quality time” looking at her photos LOL! I have to say meeting her in such a casual atmosphere all chilled out in her everyday clothes was something special!  She was sweet and just willing to chat, a real down to earth woman.

Just wanted to share this because I was excited about it and it was super enjoyable experience for me. Cheers to Aria!

DreamnetRob and Aria Giovanni

 

Filed Under: General, Webmaster Update

Interracial Sex

March 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

What is it about Interracial Sex that drives so many to anger? If you have looked at my wife’s website (or about a 1000 others .. LOL) you know that she participates in Interracial Sex. I think it’s wonderful, it’s not all that she desires but it is something we enjoy. Actually we don’t even seek out Interracial Sex that often. More often than not it finds her. Dawn Marie and I like to consider ourselves racially indifferent. What does this mean you ask? Well we don’t really look at people in terms of their racial make up. To us it doesn’t matter if a person is black, brown, white, yellow, red or whatever. Dawn Marie only looks at a potential playmate in terms of whether or not he is someone she is attracted to, it’s that simple. If she is attracted to them and likes them on a personal level she’ll do pictures with them.

Interracial Sex Rocks!

But back to my initial question; why are so many people hung up negatively with it? She occasionally gets email from people that are very angry regarding her interracial fun. They spew out racial slurs call her n****r lover and all sorts of weird stuff. They bash me for allow my wife to be with a black man and accuse me of not being able to satisfy her. It’s totally ridiculous in both of our opinions. We just laugh it off really. But think about it at a scientific level. What is the difference between white, black, brown, red or yellow people? I mean we’re all genetically made up the same. Sure our bodies and skin pigmentation may have evolved a little different depending on which part of the globe our heritage is from, but that’s it. We all share the same biological make up. So once again that leads me back to societal views on why some chastise her (and us) for these encounters.

When applying science to human emotions, many of the things we believe simply do not make sense or stand up to scientific scrutiny. They are “learned” behaviors; hate is learned, love is learned, compassion is learned and so is tolerance. And it is how these things were taught to us as youngsters or through our own life learning experiences that develop our views on race. I mean come on … reality is reality.. I know I’m a white man that is of average endowment and I know that many black men are endowed much more than I. Does that bother me or make me jealous? Of course not, that would be irrational.

All I’m trying to say is that if you are one of those people that send hate mail, think before you send. Don’t let your irrational hate take over the truth of a situation. You are doing nothing but showing your ignorance. But then again some believe that ignorance is bliss and for them the world goes buy empty and devoid of true thought.

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Dear Mrs. Palin

March 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Dear Mrs. Palin,

I came to your FB page today to read what you have posted lately and comment like I often do. To my surprise you have blocked me from commenting! Really? Are you serious? With the thousands of comments on your FB page you are honestly afraid of what I, an normal American, has to say? I find this absolutely amazing and explains your closed minded view of the world.

While I made it no secret that I did not agree with most of what you had to say. I was NEVER mean spirited or throwing out insults to people. I only commented on your posts and posts of others. I provided my alternative view points and thoughts and various subjects. Is it wrong to allow dissenting opinion? Is it not our differences that allow for debate? If we all thought exactly the same there would be no need for debate.

I must admit that I am truly amazed that I was blocked from commenting, actually shocked. I suppose I should not be in light of all the stories coming out about your extreme paranoia regarding anyone opposing your views.

In conclusion, if you are open to debate and the true American that you claim to be you should remove me from the group of people that cannot comment.

Sincerely,
Rob

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Mr. Hitler is Unhappy About Porn Piracy

December 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

This is a CRAZY parody but it rings true LOL!

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The Dreamnet Office

December 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Thought you may like to see the home office I have built to do all the Dreamnet work in!

The Dreamnet.com Office from Rob on Vimeo.

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Had A Great Time In Vegas

May 20, 2010 By 6 Comments

The Dreamgirls know this but I didn’t announce it to the world prior to going.  Dawn Marie and I went to Las Vegas this past week and REALLY had a good time. It was our first get away with just the two of us in a long time and it was really nice.  We usually travel with family or Dreamnet friends, so getting away on our own was great!  Did some gambling, took lots of pictures and did some partying with Adorable Audrey :)   It was such a fun time being away with no worries for a change!

We did a bunch of photo shoots which was nice because quite frankly after 12 years online Dawn Marie and I are tired of shooting in our house LOL!

Here is a few fun pictures from the trip and I definitely feel rejuvenated!

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Stop The Stealing of Content

May 1, 2010 By 2 Comments

I have been wanting to write for a long time on the topic of stealing Amateur Adult content and really couldn’t put into words. But once I saw this video released by the Free Speech Coalition I decided it was time to post something.

The video above shows professional Hollywood Porn Industry people. But the EXACT same thing holds true for the sites like Dreamnet.com and women we work with. Even though the women of Dreamnet.com don’t make big money and most started doing this for fun. There are a lot of costs and time involved!

So where will your favorite Amateur Adult Internet woman be a year from now? That is the question you must ask yourself if you are one of those people that take their pictures and videos for trading on the plethora of forums and tube sites that allow you share the content of the Dreamnet.com women.

This is the dirty little secret of the Amateur word that nobody wants to talk about, but it’s time to talk about it! Everyone wants to think that all the girls do this ONLY because they love it. Well that is part of it for sure. But many do it because they love it and because they make a living at it. Even going back to the early days of Dreamnet.com when it was run by Tracey and her hubby, the girls did it because they made great money and enjoyed it! As a matter of fact, in the late 90’s and early 2000’s the girls made really good money having a website. This is because content stealing was not an issue. Amateur women made much more than they do now and that is a fact, ask any woman that has been around for a since the 1990’s and they will tell it’s true.

However, in today’s Internet with all the Tube Site, Forums, Torrents and Social Networks these girls get their content stolen and re-posted all the time. So you have to ask yourself the question. What will happen if people keep stealing and trading everyone’s content. I’ll tell you what will happen! The women that make the stuff will simply quit doing it.

So if you are one of the people that steal content and trade with others shame on you! It’s no different than stealing from the store. The content you get from Dreamnet.com and other Amateur sites like it is for your personal viewing pleasure. Not to re-post and trade with others. So please stop or sites like Dreamnet.com and others will not survive!

To those of you that support our women by spending your hard earned money on our sites and keep the content to yourself … THANK YOU! We love you and hope to continue doing this for a long time. But as a community we need to rally together and put all these thieving sites out of business. They do nothing but allow re-posting of stolen content.

The amount of time that Dreamnet.com women and myself spend getting stolen content removed from all these sites could be much better put to use making our sites better!

Thanks for listening to my rant. I look forward to your comments and thoughts.

Sincerely,
Rob

Filed Under: General, Webmaster Update Tagged With: , ,

Deauxma In Urban Dictionary

April 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Deauxma has become a NOUN!

This is some awesome stuff … Deauxma from Dreamnet.com has been with us a long time and she had made it to Urban Dictionary

Deauxma In Urban Dictionary

Deauxma In Urban Dictionary

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New Pornography Laws

April 19, 2010 By Leave a Comment

There are some new pornography laws coming soon. Everyone needs to say abreast of the situation!

Congress Announces Plan To Hide Nation’s Porn From Future Generations

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Keep Your Porn Purchases Hidden

April 5, 2010 By 3 Comments

How To Keep Your Porn Purchases On The Down Low

I was asked this question by somebody on Twitter and I thought I’d share with everyone. I know in this day and age many spouses and significant others are watching Credit Card and Bank Statements very closely. So sneaking purchases past the finance officer in your household can be tricky!

I have BIG NEWS! CCBill now accepts all those Visa and Master Cards that you purchase in the grocery store gift card section!

We don’t recommend lying to your spouse or significant other. Tell them about your adult fantasies you may even be surprised. But if your significant other is closed minded and does not understand you wanting to view adult material follow the simple steps below.

Here is how to surf adult sites online and not get busted!

  1. Purchase a prepaid Visa or Mastercard from your local grocery store gift card section. These cards CANNOT be traced to you and you will never sent a statement at your house.
  2. Surf the Web privately using the free web browsers Firefox, Safari or Google Chrome. All three browsers are available on both Windows and Mac.  All three browsers offer a private browsing function that allows you to surf the web without leaving browser history, cookies and saved passwords. This way your significant other will have no tracks to follow.
  3. Open a free email account. I recommend Gmail, however, both Microsoft and Yahoo have free email accounts too.  Note, DO not put in your real name and personal information.
  4. Optional: Create seperate profiles on your computer for yourself and your spouse. Just play it off like you want to have your own space to organize differently.

Click The Images Below To See Private Browsing Examples:

Firefox Private Browsing

Chrome Private Browsing

Safari Private Browsing

Hope these tips help and happy surfing and check out this article on Life Hacker “Top 10 Ways to Access Blocked Stuff on The Web“

Filed Under: General, Webmaster Update Tagged With: , , ,

TERA PATRICK: MARKET PENETRATION

January 21, 2010 By 1 Comment

Note: This is not my writing it is re-print from LA Weekly

Rob Commentary: I wanted to re-post this article here because it re-enforces what I have been telling online women for 10 years. What makes guys interested in your site; using your personality, connecting with your viewer and being personable.  Thanks to Rebecca from Dreamnet for turning me on to this article.

TERA PATRICK: MARKET PENETRATION
BY ADAM GROPMAN
Published on January 13, 2010 at 4:15pm

Porn superstar Tera Patrick stands tall and poised behind the rear counter of Book Soup, signing copies of her new autobiography, Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn, in pink Sharpie and making charming, occasionally giddy small talk with her book-buying fans.

She is businesslike and well-spoken, with the demeanor of, say, a software company executive, and the ability to forge a genuine connection in conversation. But she seems nearly devoid of sensuality. Strong women can be feminine, indeed, but behind Patrick’s sharp features and exotic face was a woman who appeared numbed by her years in the sex industry.

To be triumphant in Patrick’s line of work today requires more than being born with the elusive “X-factor.” It requires considerable creativity and stamina, for she and her entire industry face what is perhaps a more immediate threat than social conservatives, Andrea Dworkin–style feminists and venereal disease combined: free online porn.

It’s no secret that for years now, free content on the Internet has been steadily decimating the print-journalism and music industries. But in a related development as ironic as it is dire, the same World Wide Web that once opened up a financial gold mine for porn players is now allowing for the cannibalization of said industry by none other than itself. Whereas just several years ago almost all X-rated online video content was confined to sites that charged considerable fees, a growing list of adult superportals now just give it away. How do some online stars — like Patrick — remain above the increasingly saturated and competitive fray?

A porn star today has to be “more in personal contact in order to stimulate me to pay for the site,” says hairstylist Richard Vasquez, a middle-aged gent with a bit of a Sedona, Arizona, hippie look (and the only Patrick fan to give his full name). “Generally speaking, I would [follow] just about anybody, probably, that I came into contact with and got to know a little bit, versus randomly just picking a site, which doesn’t interest me.”

Vasquez says he signed up for porn personality Sophie Dee’s $30-a-month site after meeting her through his work.

Patrtick has a unique look, explains Eric, a diminutive, enthusiastically talkative man in his 30s. “I’ve even had people like my mom see her on TV and go, ‘Who is that gorgeous model?’ ”

“She seems a little more realistic,” says Jennifer, in her late 30s and deeply tanned with long, black hair. “It’s a business. In interviews I’ve seen, she’s like, ‘Yeah, I love it, it’s what I do.’ But she seems just a little more realistic than some of these other girls. I’m not a huge porn person but I do like her.”

“You have people who are just specifically into up-and-comers,” says John — nicknamed Chief — one of a trio of affable, gregarious middle-aged friends happy to discuss the sociopsychology of porn while waiting in line for an autograph. “They go on a free site, they aren’t into any brand like Tera Patrick or Jenna Jameson.”

By that he means having the porn equivalent of a “matinee idol,” a strong, charismatic personality appreciated during a fan’s formative viewing years. .

“Videos nowadays are just so gonzo,” says John’s buddy Dave. “And I like a little bit more story.”

Michael, the third of the trio, describes meeting another porn star at an adult convention in Vegas a few years back. “She was just horrible … horrible. I would never, ever buy a video or a book of hers, or support her. Even if she was giving it away, I wouldn’t get it. She didn’t care about anybody.”

“I’d see Christy Canyon back in the day,” says John. “She was so personable, I’d drop everything to go see her. She was very communicative and affectionate.”

So is the key to success having a unique look? Or good business sense? Or personal contact with fans? Or the luck to have been a star in many well-produced feature-length films?

“I say I’m lucky,” says Ms. Patrick, whose voice and demeanor more resemble those of a software-industry executive than a porn star. “I have a very big fan base, so it hasn’t hurt me that much, but I think [online porn] is cannibalizing the industry, absolutely, because DVD sales are down. A lot of companies are going out of business, absolutely.”

She points out her complete control and ownership of her content, with Teravision, and although clips of her pre-2003 — when she still worked for other companies — are available on the free sites, the Tera brand is still, well, kicking ass.

“Fans who love you and who like you and who clamor for more all the time, they fall in love with you, who you are,” Patrick says. “A lot of companies that went out of business don’t have a star, it’s kind of faceless.”

What about the relatively recent development in porn of using an endless cavalcade of “real” performers, doing shorter, homemade-style clips with almost no narrative story line?

Patrick adopts a sultry, breathy tone that’s both dramatic and funny. “I tell the amateurs … to leave it to the professionals.”

Filed Under: Advice For Webgirls, Webmaster Update Tagged With: , ,

Kristine Cover of Big Butt Magazine

November 9, 2009 By 6 Comments

Our Kistine from Dreamnet along with a Dreamnet Article is posted in the January 2010 issue of Big Butt magazine. Run out to your local adult store to get a copy :)   I believe several other Dreamnet girls will be in this issue also, but not sure until I see it.

Kristine on Twitter: twitter.com/Kristine_Cumz

Also, so hello to Ms Power Bosom on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mspowerbosom she is one of the Big Butt Mag contributors and gave us this opportunity. There is more Dreamnet women the February 2010 editon of  Big Butt Magazine coming next.

bigbutt

Filed Under: Dreamgirl Updates, Webmaster Update Tagged With: , , , ,

My Happiness Comes From Me!

October 28, 2009 By 7 Comments

I have been online now since 1992 and through all the changes with the Internet over this time, there is one thing that has never change; Others willingness to try and tear me down.

Honestly, years ago I used to get really upset when people attacked me with little or no knowledge of what they are talking about. They just shoot off at the mouth trying to tear me down. I’ve been attacked in forums, attacked in videos, stuff mailed to my family and even stuff addressed to my kids. No longer does any of this bother me. I have learned I cannot let others tear me down. I just live my life with the honest thought that I treat people the way I would want to be treated. And I live my life in way that takes care of me, my family & friends.

I cannot control how others see me or choose to interpret my motives, thoughts & emotions. Fact is most of these attackers have never even talked with me. They just make assumptions about me based on the way I help run Dreamnet  or based on some lie someone else  has told them. These haters are insignificant to me and deserve no response.

As many of you know there is another webmaster out there that continually tries to bring me down. I won’t mention his name, as I don’t want him to gain traffic from this. However, he and his minions spend most of their forum time on his forum attacking me, attacking Dreamnet and attacking my wife.  They tend to spend their time with their petty forum posts instead of worrying about their own affairs it’s like they sit around half their life trying to figure out how to bring me down.  The question is; are they trying to bring me down or to raise their own self-esteem by attacking me?

You see I am firm believer that being positive brings  positive energy in your life and being negative brings negativity into your life. I want my life to be positive so I remain positive. And regardless of what others may think of me I only worry about my own happiness. I cannot control the happiness in others lives, that is their responsibility.

So to these people that want to continue and try to tear me down. Feel free to contribute to your own unhappiness with your negative attitudes. Feel free to continue trying to bring me down. Continue on telling your lies. Continue on having your minions chime in and spout out stuff they know nothing about.  I don’t care, I will live my life and remain happy. As I am happy in the fact that I have family and friends that love me the way I am. Your approval means nothing to me.  My happiness is derived from within, not from the approval of others.

Some quotes I find on topic for this post:
“The opposite of security is insecurity, and the only way to overcome insecurity is to take risks.” ~ Theodore Forstmann

“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.” ~ Ayn Rand

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” ~ Winston Churchill

“Mean People Suck!” ~ from a bumper sticker!

Filed Under: Webmaster Update Tagged With: , , ,

Webmaster Life Entry 1

September 3, 2009 By 9 Comments

I often get guys telling me on Twitter or Email that “man, you have the greatest job in world”. I do love my job I admit. I am certainly not doing this to get rich that is for sure! I started in the online adult community back in the mid-1990’s because I am a true believer that the “woman next door” is often the most beautiful woman in the world. I always believed this, even as teenager. Contrary to the images put forth in the common magazines of the day like Penthouse, Playboy, Glamour, Vogue and Cosmopolitan I believe most men enjoy the “real woman”. Not that the models in those magazines are not real or pretty, they are both of those. However, they are unattainable for the mortal man … LOL!

Not only do I get to work with such great women, but often I get to meet them. And there have even been a few over the years that I’ve had the chance to play with, not often but a couple times.

Most of the women I work with are great women, but Dreamnet also mirrors real life in the sense that every so often you run across someone you are working with that is just a complete ass or stuck on themselves. These types of women never end up working out on Dreamnet. In the Amateur Adult Arena I think once a viewer figures out a woman is stuck on herself she is doomed. Guys can smell a stuck up woman a million miles away LOL!

If you are like me you are looking for women that are real and obtainable. You know, the kind of woman that if you ran into her at the bar or the mall you’d be like “I have a chance with her”. A woman that is down to earth, nice and obtainable. Yes I know all of us men have our physical preferences. But I can honestly say that for me, those physical preferences are often forgotten about if I really like someone on a personality level.

Whenever a new woman comes to Dreamnet one of the first questions I get asked “how much does the average Dreamgirl make” and next is exactly what I tell them. “It’s almost impossible to come up with an average. We have women that make very little per week and women that make a lot per week. And that’s because being an online adult amateur is 80% personality and 20% looks.” What I mean when I tell women this is that the Internet has so much free porn there is no reason a guy has to spent one penny on Internet Porn. If all a guy wants to do is jack off there are a million sites online that let you do that for free. So what makes an amateur adult woman attractive to someone, one thing, their personality. As far as I can tell this is the only reason a guy will buy a amateur site. A woman’s personality (80%) combined with her content (20%) is what makes a man attracted to her site. I know this because I was one of those men long before becoming the Dreamnet Webmaster. Since being a webmaster on Dreamnet I have witnessed women of every shape, size and color make money … and I have seen women of every shape, size and color not make money. The one differentiating factor is personality!

Ok Ok … I’m rambling now. But that is what I want these Webmaster posts to be about. My life and thoughts here on Dreamnet! And if you have specific questions you’d like to see answered in this column email them to dreamnetrob@gmail.com or reply to this post.

One thing I have always enjoyed about being a webmaster is the “special pictures” I get from Dreamgirls every once in a while. I cherish these photos because they make me feel a little special and like somebody out there gives a damn LOL! They just add a little sunshine in my life. Her are couple of examples.

A cute photo Karma (former Dreamgril) took for me.
karma.jpg

Here is another example Tiffiny (former Dreamgirl) took for me on my birthday!
tiffiny.jpg

But with all it’s glory this job is also very hard and can be quite frustrating at times. I work A LOT of hours. I often put in 60 – 70 hours a week. Luckily I’m one of those people that function quite well on 5 – 6 hours sleep. Another thing that drives me nuts and caused me to tweet some negative stuff on Wednesday is apathy. Women are always saying to me, “I love doing this Rob but I need to make more money if I’m going to keep doing it”. But they don’t want to work at it? They do the content portion (20%) but they do not do the personality portion (80%). What do I mean by work at it … I mean sharing themselves and their personality. Take this blog as one example, I spent 5 days straight from a Thursday through a Tuesday working on setting up this new Dreamnet homepage and blog. I worked straight through the weekend doing 12 – 14 hour days. But how many of the Dreamnet women actually use this blog regularly? Maybe 8 or so. Most have not even made a single post. I have encouraged all the women to post in here with their updates and also non-porn related things. Anything that makes them happy. Hell I don’t care, write about the new furniture you just purchased. Why? Because it shares insight in your personality and what makes a man want to spend money on a Dreamgirl, you got it, personality. But just as with the Dreamnet Forum, only a small percentage of Dreamgirls use this blog. An even smaller percentage of Dreamnet viewers comment on posts made here. So this is one of those times that I probably busted my ass for nothing. I’m going to leave if for nothing else but for me to vent and for the google search engines. After all, the few that do use will be rewarded over time.

That’s all for now, I’ve already went on to long. And if you have specific questions you’d like to see answered in this column email them to dreamnetrob@gmail.com or reply to this post.

As the song “The Bug” by Mary Chapin Carpenter goes “Sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug”. I guess right now I’m feeling more like the bug LOL!

One last note: Any Dreamgirl, hubby or Dreamnet viewer/fan out there that would like to write for this blog on any topic please let me know at dreamentrob@gmail.com and we can set it up.

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Diggnation Live In Tempe, AZ

August 20, 2009 By 2 Comments

Last night Dawn Marie and I got a real treat!  We attended the Diggnation Live Show in Tempe, AZ.  We are both huge fans of Digg and Diggnation and I have watched the show since Episode #1.  So seeing last nights show was a real treat.  This all came about through the wonders of social networking.  Dawn Marie and I knew the show was coming to town and since it is a free show tickets are always hard to come by unless you are able to to stand in line for hours.  Since I had to work all day standing in line was not an option.  I got a hold of one of the guys on the show via twitter and through the wonders of social networking managed to score some tickets.  It was so AWESOME because Dawn Marie and I were on the guest list and able to sit just a few rows back dead center in front the stage. The house was packed and we would have never had this opportunity if it wasn’t for contacting the guys through twitter, so thank you and you know who you are!

It was a great show last night and if you have not yet discovered the joy of Online TV or Podcasting I highly suggest you check out some of the shows at revision3.com!

Thanks to Hippy Glen, David Prager, Alex Albrecht & Kevin Rose. It was a hell of night for Dawn Marie and I !

I’ve attached a few pictures and about 50 seconds of pre-show video I took with my little pocket camera!

Filed Under: General, Webmaster Update

Tough times in the porn industry

August 13, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Source: Published at the LATIMES.COM – Full Artcile Here

Tough times in the porn industry
The business, centered in the San Fernando Valley, is being undercut by a growing abundance of free content on the Internet.
By Ben Fritz

August 10, 2009

On a recent Saturday night, Savannah Stern earned $300 to hang out for seven hours at a party in Santa Monica wearing nothing but a feather boa.

The veteran of more than 350 hard-core pornography productions took the job to earn extra cash and to network. But the word at the 35th anniversary party for Hustler magazine was not heartening, especially among the roughly 75 other women working there.

“At least five girls I haven’t seen in a while came up to me and said, ‘Savannah, are you working?’ ” said Stern, who started in the industry four years ago and, like most adult performers, uses a stage name. “I had to say, ‘No, not really,’ and they all said, ‘Yeah, I’m not either.’ ”

The adult entertainment business, centered in the San Fernando Valley, has weathered several recessions since it took off with the advent of home video in the 1980s. But this time the industry is not dealing with just a weakened economy. A growing abundance of free content on the Internet is undercutting consumers’ willingness to pay for porn, and with it the ability of many workers to earn a living in the business.

For Stern, 23, the rapid decline of job opportunities in the porn business over the last year has been dramatic. She has gone from working four or five days a week to one and now has employers pressuring her to do male-female sex scenes for $700, a 30% discount from the $1,000 fee that used to be the industry standard.

Less than two years ago, Stern earned close to $150,000 annually, sometimes turned down work and drove a Mercedes-Benz CLK 350. Now she’s aggressively reaching out for jobs and making closer to $50,000 a year.

As for that Mercedes? She’s replacing it with a used Chevy Trailblazer — from her parents.

“The opportunities in this industry really are disappearing,” Stern said. “It’s extremely stressful.”

Industry insiders estimate that since 2007, revenue for most adult production and distribution companies has declined 30% to 50% and the number of new films made has fallen sharply.

“We’ve gone through recessions before, but we’ve never been hit from every side like this,” said Mark Spiegler, head of the Spiegler Girls talent agency, who has worked in porn since 1995.

“It’s the free stuff that’s killing us, and that’s not going away,” said Dion Jurasso, owner of porn production company Combat Zone, which has seen its business fall about 50% in the last three years.

Porn is hardly the only segment of the media industry struggling with these issues. But its problems appear to be more severe. Whereas online piracy has forced big changes in the music industry and is starting to affect movies and television, it has upended adult entertainment.

At least five of the 100 top websites in the U.S. are portals for free pornography, referred to in the industry as “tube sites,” according to Internet traffic ranking service Alexa .com. Some of their content is amateur work uploaded by users and some is acquired from cheap back catalogs, but much of it is pirated.

Sites like Pornhub, YouPorn and RedTube attract more users than TMZ and the Huffington Post. The porn sites are even bigger than Pirate Bay, the top portal for illegal downloads of movies, TV shows and music.

Frustratingly for porn producers and distributors in the Valley, none of these sites appears to be making much money. Suzann Knudsen, a marketing director for PornoTube, said the site’s parent, Adult Entertainment Broadcast Network, uses it to attract customers for paid video on demand.

“PornoTube isn’t a piggy bank,” she said. “Its true value is in traffic.”

The adult entertainment business, which was previously in the vanguard of home video, satellite and cable television and digital distribution, now finds itself leading the rest of the entertainment industry in losses from them.

“The death of the DVD business has been more accelerated in the adult business than mainstream,” said Bill Asher, co-chairman of adult industry giant Vivid Entertainment, who estimates that his company’s revenue is down more than 20% this year.

“We always said that once the Internet took off, we’d be OK,” he added. “It never crossed our minds that we’d be competing with people who just give it away for free.”

There are plenty of other signs of the porn industry’s pain. Attendance at the Adult Entertainment Expo, an annual trade show in Las Vegas that’s open some days to the public, was down 20% this year. Pay-per-view programming, a key revenue source for the industry, has fallen about 50% from its peak three or four years ago, according to a person familiar with the cable and satellite TV business.

Reliable revenue and employment figures for the adult industry don’t exist, since no analysts or economists track it. Adult Video News estimated in 2006 that it was worth $13 billion, but Paul Fishbein, editor of the trade publication, said the number was “an educated guess.”

“Almost all of the companies in our industry are privately held, and they keep the cards close to their chests,” said Diane Duke, executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, an industry trade group.

The effects of the downturn have been felt most severely by the thousands of people who work in the adult entertainment business.

Kelly Labanco doesn’t need industry estimates to know what’s happening. The makeup artist, who has worked in porn for five years, is landing half as many jobs as she did a year ago and has seen her pay drop from a high of $250 an hour to less than $100.

“A lot of companies say they don’t even need makeup artists now and the girls can do it themselves,” said Labanco, who has returned to her previous job doing freelance music publicity to pay the bills.

Even the industry’s biggest events aren’t worth what they used to be for working people like Labanco. Last year, she and a friend did makeup for a week at the Adult Entertainment Expo and earned $8,000. This year: $1,200.

Caroline Pierce, an adult film performer who lives in Las Vegas but flies to Los Angeles for work, said many companies have pressured her to do more scenes for less money.

“Instead of paying you $800 to do one, they’ll pay you $1,200 for both,” she explained.

As economic pressures increase, many performers have also changed their minds about what they are willing do on-screen. Previously, women earned hefty bonuses for unusual sex scenes. That’s often no longer the case.

“A few years ago the girls we got were OK, but not stellar models, and we were sometimes paying $2,500,” said porn director Matt Morningwood, referring to a website he shoots for that features one woman and multiple male partners.

“Nowadays some of the top-tier models will do that scene for us and you’re looking at maybe $1,800. I’m happy for the production, but I feel bad for exploiting the girls’ situation.”

The only growth market most executives see is mobile devices, since they let consumers watch porn anywhere and in relative privacy.

Major companies that serve as a gateway to content on cellphones in the U.S. such as Verizon don’t allow explicit adult content. But like cable and satellite companies in the 1990s, they may change their minds when they see the potential profit.

“Anyone betting against porn being a meaningful driver of traffic and revenue on mobile networks would be making a bad choice based on history,” said Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research.

Adult performers with big followings probably will continue to prosper, since they often work under a guaranteed contract and have loyal fans who buy all their work. Business managers for Belladonna and Tera Patrick, two of the industry’s biggest stars, said their clients were using their celebrity to make money in other ways, like dancing in exotic clubs and licensing their name to sex toys and lingerie.

“The economy has forced us to look in other directions such as tangible goods,” said Evan Seinfeld, who co-manages Patrick, his wife, and runs her production company, Teravision.

But for the “middle class” of the industry, those opportunities don’t exist.

“It seems at this point that if you haven’t established a well-known name, it’s really hard to keep working,” performer Alexa Jordan said.

Savannah Stern is adjusting to that reality. She’s shooting scenes for her own subscription website and planning a tour of exotic dance clubs to earn money from her name while she can. After that, she hopes to go to college for an interior design degree and work in her family’s real estate development and contracting business.

“I wish I would have never gotten into it,” Stern said of her career in porn. “When you get used to a certain lifestyle, it’s really hard to cut back and realize this may not be forever.”

author: ben.fritz@latimes.com Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

Filed Under: Webmaster Update Tagged With: , ,

Five Best Video Players

August 10, 2009 By 4 Comments

Written By Jason Fitzpatrick, 9:00 AM on Sun Aug 9 2009

Note: I did not write this article. It is published here under creative commons license and from the website lifehacker.com!

01
We’ve come a long way since animated GIFs and video-game-style MIDI files were considered cutting edge computer-provided A/V entertainment. Take advantage of today’s high-quality video with one of these five most popular video players.

Photo by horsager.

Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite video player. We’ve tallied up the votes and now we’re back to share the results. Below you’ll find the five most popular video players among Lifehacker readers. If you’re dissatisfied with the features of your current player, it’s a great shopping list of alternatives.

The movie used in the screenshots below is Big Buck Bunny—a completely open-source generated and Creative Commons-licensed short movie.

Media Player Classic (Windows, Free)
02

Media Player Classic started out as a project to preserve the simplicity and lightweight playback of the old Windows Media Player while keeping codecs and features current for the present generation of video. The outcome is an extremely lightweight, free, portable, and self-contained video player that has built-in codecs for a wide variety of media playback. The upside of such a design is you can use it on a machine that doesn’t have the proper codecs installed for the video you want to watch. The downside is in some instances—although rare—it can conflict with an updated codec you have installed on your machine.

MPlayer (Windows/Mac/Linux, Free)
03

Originally designed to fill the void of a lack of adequate Linux media players, the development for the robust media player MPlayer has branched out and now includes versions for Windows and Mac, among others. MPlayer supports a wide variety of content and, perhaps owing to its Linux roots, pays extra close attention to hardware and hardware optimization to squeeze the most playback power out of your system.

GOM Player (Windows, Free)
04

GOM Player is another entrant in this week’s Hive that, like VLC, excels at playing damaged and incomplete video. Originally designed as the streaming media player for GOM-TV, a Korean TV network, it is available outside of Korea with the GOM-TV streaming functionality disabled—although folks outside Korea still have access to the live streaming of StarCraft matches (StarCraft is so wildly popular among Koreans playing it is practically a national sport). GOM Player also includes a wide variety of sub-title tweaks, an important feature for a player from a country that consumes a lots of foreign media.

VLC (Windows/Mac/Linux, Free)
05

VLC is a media player with far-reaching appeal. It is available for over ten operating systems including systems as obscure as BeOS. Built with open-source code and fueled by free decoding and encoding libraries, it has a history of innovation and performance; it was, for example, the first player that could play back encrypted DVDs on Linux. VLC allows you to play incomplete or damaged videos, so you can decide if it is worth finishing a download or repairing a video file. VLC can also play a variety of formats not commonly supported by media players, such as a raw DVD ISO file or AVCHD—a format currently used by many HD camcorders. VLC is available as a portable application.

KMPlayer (Windows, Free)
06

If you like all your media player’s settings at your fingertips, KMPlayer has a lot to offer. The right click context menu is absolutely enormous and gives you nearly instant access to all manner of settings, including screen ratio, playback speed, video bookmarking, filters, and other effects. You can set KMPlayer to change its skin based on what media type you’re playing or if you’re running it on a media center you can use an overlay skin to provide easy remote-based navigation. KMPlayer supports an extensive number of formats including DVD playback and is easily customized to your specific needs.

Filed Under: General, Webmaster Update