I think the line is and should be drawn at traffic. In an earlier time the umd garnered traffic as a "hub" which would then hand over the traffic to producer's sites with prominence given to those with the most exposure and interest. With your recent addition of the download stores you have indeed leveled the playing field for all newcomers, one timers etc. and it has been at the expense of the more established producers. Those who have gone to the expense and effort to create their own sites should garner more traffic and indeed more sales but now once here at the umd, why leave to go to one of these established sites? Especially if the idea is born that there is no reason to leave as everything is here. It's not btw.

To me this is not "much" different than a tube site where the resident host gains his material for free and profits off that input. This does not benefit the contributors to the same degree as if they actually had visitors to their site, which is what they would prefer. I enlist umd's features and advertising board for the benefit of gaining traffic, I don't need a store front or a mock site here. I just need you to send as much traffic to my site as possible, for which I pay you, I'll look after the rest, that's my job.

To again elevate the one click folks to full competition with those of us who have worked very hard to establish, pay for and promote their own business entities for many years only weakens their positions and investments. To this end there is really only one winner, as with the tube sites. I'll bet every established producer here has asked the question; what would business be like if the umd didn't exist?

To offer advertising services to sites in this industry is one thing, to take traffic away is another. In establishing this new feature you will be gaining search engine placement at an exponential rate and it will benefit from every model's name placed here and every reference to wam etc. and hundreds of newbies will be sporting links to the umd and those with established sites who send traffic here are basically handing over their customers to be shared communally. More important is that placing comparably to the umd in S/E rankings will become an impossibility. From hub to funnel.

To be honest these newbie wam producers shouldn't be able to compete with the establish sites and stores, and why should they? They haven't learned how to build a site, don't know squat about SEO and most couldn't even make a thumbnail image without help. Not to mention the complete lack of financial input required. Truth is they don't exist any where else on an equal status to those who have made the effort and investment. Leveling the field for your own benefit is one thing, leveling it for those who have invested nothing is not beneficial.

It's true the economy has and will continue to take a hit from the short sightedness of yesterday but at the same time you've introduced an enormous amount of competition that basically wouldn't be there if it wasn't for your efforts. This has compounded the problems that we as business people have to face and the results of this I believe are evident as many establish sites that were going concerns and worthy have recently dropped by the wayside.

If your plan is to continue with this idea, which I seriously hope it isn't. Then I would be curious about traffic leaks and obligatory association. Will these sites have any resident links/banners on them that direct people to other areas of your site and will customers be obligated to meet the minimum checkout via that one site or will they be referred to other sites to make up the difference. As it stands now I cannot even place a link to my sites from your provided store, that's more of a black hole than a hub as far as those of us who have established sites. Also as one who has recently just completed a year long effort to build his own download store I can tell you it's very nice to see that the minimum sale is "all ours". In time I hope the 50% savings will pay me back for my efforts as well. Likewise if you do plan to go ahead which I somehow suspect you will, then perhaps an affiliate program could be considered where every producer who has a sale benefits off the sale of other's who were chosen from the crowd to meet the minimum sale? Likewise paying as much in credits for traffic as is charged would also show a community interest. Both of those additions would be more akin to a communal effort even though I believe it will still eventually destroy this industry or at least reduce it to a one site wonder.

wamfgcom

 

I can imagine that is how all of the big publishers and record companies felt at one time. I can clearly see your point, but I really doubt that a horde of people with smart phones and a bag of potting soil are going to do anything but help people see what a difference there is between a person with a camera, and a professional with knowledge and experience.

You may be right, but you can't stop progress. Either adapt, or die. Personally, I miss the day when I could sell DVDs. Those days are all but gone. Clips are easy for me, but I don't think they're a good deal for the consumer.

I agree with everyone. I think all of the points that have been made are quite valid. I also think what MM is doing is not much unlike Clips4Sale, where I can customize the heck out of my page and create a membership area in much the way MM describes here.

Oh well. A long day it has been.

 

I'm sorry Doug I don't think you do understand. The record companies and bookstores didn't go the way of the dinonsuar due to competition but due to a change in media format and the reduced costs of the new competitors. From the physical to digital. That is not the case here and it is not progress I'm hoping to curtail.

Also your reference to someone with a bag of dirt and a camera doesn't address the problem either. Moreso it's Walmart moving into the center of town. And if people could see the difference then Walmart wouldn't even exist. Obviously there's more to a sucessful business than the quality of it's product.

As for adapt or die, I totally agree which is why we had at first taken advantage of Soundguy's store system and later UMD's to provide D/L's in addition to our membership sites. Recently in the formation of our D/L store I decided to advertise that everything in the store could still be had for one membership fee. The result although only a few days has gone by is that is memberships have dramatically increased.

And it's true you can decorate your store as you wish, but the traffic will always belong to the domain.

 

Wamfgcom, we're on the same page. I'm not going to argue the subtleties, My analogies were lazy, because I've had a long day. Forgive me, if they don't work well for you. I still believe that the quality of my productions gives me an advantage over a "johnny-come-lately" producer.

You are right about the traffic going with the domain, but that wasn't my point. I was just saying that Derek is not doing anything that hasn't been done, already. I don't think the landscape will change dramatically. Maybe I'm just an optimist.

 

No argument with you Doug but I think it already has.
Maybe we should ask Fawn, Arial, Tyra, WTF...

It's a common theme here now that it's tough if not impossible to make enough back to cover costs. Now I have to compete with those who don't have to do anything, know anything or pay anything.

 

I get into these arguments with Noise, also. I think, maybe, our businesses are quite different. The pie/slime crowd seems to have a broader customer base than us mud/quicksand people, but you may also have more competition from "enthusiasts".

By contrast, I shoot most of my movies in the swamp, and there just aren't that many people who are willing to do what I do. Furthermore, I drag microphones and expensive camera equipment into the swamp, along with 2 decades of experience in mudding and videography. My biggest dilemma is finding models who are willing to brave the elements to appear in a deep swamp movie. Noise tells me that models are a dime a dozen in the pie/slime business. He says he could shoot a different model every week. I don't have that luxury.

So, I suppose, my perspective is a lot different from yours.

 

I'm not sure I'm buying this leap of logic. Are UMD downloads and your site mutually exclusive? How much did WamDownloads.com take a hit when StickyTara decided to open her UMD store? In fact, how much did it cost WamDownloads.com the web site when you started selling the same downloads on UMD's system? You can see the numbers from both sites, so did UMD really cannibalize sales from your standalone site? Even if it did, how can you be so sure that all these other amateurs, selling other stuff, are really displacing sales on your site? I believe that any connection is tentative at best, and totally made up at worst.



Why should they? I mean, if your standalone site is actually better, or works better, or looks better, or has better content, then of course it should get more traffic and sales. But if the standalone site is not better, then it doesn't automatically deserve a bunch of sales just because its owner tried real hard or paid a webmaster a lot of money. Customers visit a site and buy stuff because the content is good and the site is fun to use. They won't start patronizing a site just because the owner really wants them to. Their browsing and purchasing habits derive from the merits of the site itself, not some abstract principles. You wanna sell more widgets? Then make better widgets; Don't try to block new competition just because they are new. If your site and content are good enough, then you have nothing to worry about. If it is not good enough, then your only option is to make it better, not rely on the absence of competition.

An independent site (not on UMD) will have much more flexibility for the producer than UMD could ever hope to give. If you can build and maintain it, then great. I'll continue to support you and send you traffic from the directory's site listings, from unlimited What's New plugs, from your forum signature (plus all your forum plugs), from the what's new archive, from your profile's site listings, from the email blasts that people can subscribe to you and get, and everywhere else. For years I have been sending out free traffic to wam sites in as many ways as I can conceive of, and I'll continue to do so. If visitors love your site and patronize it, then great! But you're not going to get sales for any reason other than having good content and a good site. People simply don't care how much time and money you've invested in it unless the content shows it.



How could they prefer traffic to their site if they don't even have a site? You have a site, so of course you'd prefer traffic to your own site. If somebody has a site out there already, then they don't have to offer his content here at all. They can just have their standalone site somewhere, and I will send it all the traffic I can, as usual. Those who do not or cannot have a real site can just use UMD. And everybody's happy. I like that a choice can exist.

As far as profiting off all this "free material," you profit too. All producers benefit from this traffic. All visitors benefit from it all, too. I can't think of a better situation where everybody wins. But it is NOT free for me. Do you want to pay UMD's bandwidth bill?



This is not true because you do have a UMD download store front. http://umd.net/downloads/site/wamdownloads That's your UMD site right there, already running! If you don't want it, you can close it if you want. All I'm proposing doing is taking that exact listing, that you already have, and switching up the template to look different from UMD, plus allowing you to offer many downloads for a single price under a membership bundle.



So you're implying that major producers wish UMD never existed?

Running the UMD, I can't just think of producers who have the ability to run their own sites. I am also thinking of the amateurs. From your point of view, I can totally see that you want to protect your business and bar anyone else from having an easy way of selling their content, after you've spent so much time building your site. You want UMD to just send your site as much traffic as possible, and not help or encourage the novices, purely for the reason that you don't want competition. But I bet the novice producers don't feel that way. And I bet the customers who enjoy amateur content that they otherwise would never get don't feel that way either. I am of the mind that it can all coexist, and people will use what they wanna use and buy what they wanna buy.



If an amateur producer starts a download store/site on UMD, then whose traffic is taken away? We are giving this producer a bunch of built-in traffic. And we are sustaining UMD's traffic, too. Then this UMD traffic is here, looking at other producers' stuff, yours included. If the forum gets 200,000 page views a day, and your plug is on there, then that's great for you. But the forum does not get all that traffic because of you posting your stuff. It got the traffic because I made it easy for wammers to share their content. This content built up the traffic over the years, and now you get to make posts and syphon some of it off. In other words, the traffic you get from UMD is due to amateurs and producers uploading stuff to UMD.




I think that's a perfect side effect. Since when is more traffic bad? If UMD didn't get traffic in the first place, then your ads wouldn't work. I've already been doing search engine (SEO) work, and the model pages and everything else here already picks up on the search results. That's the point, and that's why I can turn around and give traffic to you. It's true that sites system will garner traffic to new areas where your ads don't rotate. Is it then your point that there should be no UMD areas without your ads?



It's always been that way. Do you want me to create a linking system that sends people here to only see your content? If so, then the UMD's new sites system will be perfect for you.



Well that's inevitable anyway because this is a hub/portal/directory site. A lot of sites link to UMD, and that boosts Google rankings. I spent years trying to make it enjoyable for wammers of all preferences while everyone else was building sites that only pertained to their own interests, and only sold their own content. If I list dozens of different sites that have mud wrestling (and some of them link back), plus have galleries of it, and forum posts about it, and user profiles mentioning it everywhere, then of course I'll come up high in Google for mud wrestling. Adding download stores is just another thing. Plus, I'm only one site listing, and there is room for more in the results!




You list all these reasons why they shouldn't be able to sell their stuff, but not one of your reasons mentions the quality of their content. Customers don't care about SEO, don't care who made the thumbnail images, don't care about who paid to build the site. They only care about the content. You sound like a brick-and-mortar store owner who loathes the internet because it challenges his own business model. You sound like an old film photographer who hates digital photography, not because the pictures are inferior, but because you've already invested so much in your own film cameras. I don't think you can run a successful business simply by hoping other people don't take advantage of new technologies and services that make things easier and cheaper than before. You only sound like a hater.

Besides, not everyone wants to start a whole wam business. Not everyone wants to dedicate a good portion of their life running a site. You and I have made that choice, but other people may just want to upload a wam session that they shot last night. Or they may want to get a few new dollars out of an old catalog they shot back inthe 80's. I don't believe that the "all or nothing" approach applies. If they want to sell it, and people want to buy it, then who are we to force them to make an arbitrary investment in a whole new site infrastructure when it's not necessarily needed, just because you decided to pay for one? We are a community of professionals intermingled with amateurs. Producers trying to stymie amateur competition just because they are amateurs--well, I don't agree with that. We have to understand that sites are content driven. People simply don't care what you've spent putting your site together. If you're that afraid of the amateurs, then perhaps you should spend a little more?



If you are accusing me of fostering competition, then I plead guilty. And I'd do it again. When I first opened UMD, I made no money. I opened iWam and advertised it here, and that paid some bills. Then more and more producers started opening sites, and I linked to all of them from UMD. iWam's income went down to nearly nothing because of it, yet I still supported my competition. Then I discovered affiliate programs to promote, and that all but supplanted iWam. As income lowers still, due to the economy, or non-referral site competition, or both, I still relentlessly promote all my competition here whether I get returns or not. I just can't take credit for sites dropping by the wayside. Taking an approach like "I worked hard, so only I deserve any traffic" is selfish and has never been part of UMD's philosophy. If you don't like competition, then you should either get out of the industry, or make more competitive content.



Sorry this reply is so long, but you have some good points I wanna talk about. There will be almost no links back to UMD from these sites, as the top and side navigations, plus the logo and other links on these sites will be updated to pretty much contain people within these "sites." The sites will be hosted on UMD, and UMD.NET will be in the url, which is a technical requirement because of how cookies work, SSL, etc. There will be links at the bottom to UMD's customer service so that I can handle any customer problems. That's all I can really think of for now. Oh, the shopping cart will continue to be universal. The individual stores will only contain content from that producer, but if the user already had something from another producer in his basket before visiting the site, then he will be able to purchase it all at the same time on checkout. When I got the new payment processor, I lowered UMD's minimum purchase to $5. I don't think minimum purchase will be a problem.

I want to drive the point home that this is really only a template change! Colors and layout! These "sites" are already set up and running. We are only taking the UMD logo and colors off and allowing producers to simulate a separate site by tweaking colors and buttons and adding some minor stuff.




Well all you had to do was ask! I'll add a linkback on my to do list.



I don't know how that could be done. Are you saying that if someone added a download to his cart for $3, and then bought a $2 video from you to reach the $5 minimum checkout price, then you should get commission off that $3 sale? I don't think so man. Who's to say that the second video added was the one he was using to pad up the price? What if he already just wanted both videos to begin with? What if your video was added first; Does that mean that now you owe the other guy a commission just because your stuff was bought together? What if he's been adding and removing items from his cart all day; How do we calculate who gets the commission(s)?

A referral system is already transparently working. UMD already suggests your videos to people right before they check out, if they have related content in their cart. The communal aspect of the store already lends to a lot of cross-sales, hence the random bump in sales of old material that some producers get now and then. I don't think another complicated referral system is needed.



We've already been through this. My response now is as it was long ago: UMD does not charge for traffic unless you use the ad system. All links from the site listings, what's new, forum plugs, etc etc etc are free and have been for 13 years. Does this show enough "community interest?" Many directories require a link back in order to even have a site listing. I've never had that requirement, and even better, I will gladly give you credits for the traffic you do send to UMD! If you want even more than that, then program your own advertising system and I'll buy advertising on your site. But to be fair, you'll also have to build a directory and user profile system and everything else so I can plug UMD all over your site for free, too. And then I'll complain that you're not sending me enough free traffic.

I also had mentioned that we can agree to charge each other the same price for all links between our sites. So you can charge me the same price for every hit sent to UMD, and I can charge you the same price for every hit UMD sends you. This would mean that you will have to start paying for every single link you put on the forums, your profile, what's new, etc.




This is not the first time I've been accused of destroying the wam community (by somebody who happens to use all of my services), but all humility, I can't wrap my head around that logic. If this site is not desirable, then producers will not use it. If they do, then it's because it's something that they like and use, and the customers like, and everybody is happy. Which community or industry is it that you fear I'm destroying?

/rant

 

To honest, I can see the day when smart phones and technology advance to the point where their pictures are on-par with the pros. It's already happened to the recording industry where a dude in his bedroom with a laptop and a good mike can crank out platinum hits.

But so what? That's when you just get determined to get better as a professional. A cheap camera can take really good pics now, but the user might not know how to frame or light the subject. You can always be better than them at creativity, with what you shoot, and with what you do with the pictures in post processing. Musicians can get better at their skill and play things that laptops will never be able to. It's just like you say. Adapt or die. You aren't going to make cameras and laptops go away.



How are they not a good deal? They are instant. The customer decides to buy, and 2 minutes later they're watching the video. No packing, no shipping, no waiting. They can keep all their digital downloads in a folder on their computer find them again immediately--no searching the closets anymore! DVD's scratch. mp4's do not. You can back up your mp4's and be reasonably confident that you'll have them forever. Watching a clip is better than a DVD because you can scrub right to the part you want to watch. Or loop the part you want to fap to. You can play clips on all sorts of devices where DVD's won't go. You can load a bunch of them on your iPhone. Should I go on?



I actually did not know they had a full membership option....

MM

 

I believe that it IS the case here. The record companies could have embraced digital technology just like everyone else did. But they were stubborn and hoped that the barrier to market entry was enough to keep the competition at bay. Instead of actually making better music, they instead spent the money on lawyers and lobbyists to artificially keep competition down.

In our case, we're already all digital. The point of contention now is whether an all-in-one site should exist for those who do cannot run their own site. I don't see why not. But Sid somehow sees amateurs selling their own content here as a threat to his established independent site. While he has made no mention of improving his own site or content to keep up, he has made us all aware that he should be handed an advantage simply because he was here first. If that's not like a record company, I don't know what is.




Walmart, while being cast as the devil, does offer many advantages that come from economies of scale. They can sell their shit really cheap. Yes, it has put mom and pop stores out of business, but then so many more people get a convenient place to shop for all sorts of disparate items. If there was a mom and pop store selling socks, and a Walmart right next door, you'd go to the Walmart because you can also buy some Ben and Jerry's ice cream and a hunting rifle all at the same time! If the general public preferred the smaller stores, then Walmart would already be out of business.

That said, UMD is no Walmart. Instead of usurping competition, I've always supported it. Show me a Walmart that actually sends daily traffic out to mom and pop stores? Yes, I am more ambitious with my endeavors than most, hence why I've built this whole thing and a lot of people have come to use it. But as this very thread shows, I always ask my community what it wants, and try to build it to their expectations.



As for adapt or die, I totally agree which is why we had at first taken advantage of Soundguy's store system and later UMD's to provide D/L's in addition to our membership sites. Recently in the formation of our D/L store I decided to advertise that everything in the store could still be had for one membership fee. The result although only a few days has gone by is that is memberships have dramatically increased.

And it's true you can decorate your store as you wish, but the traffic will always belong to the domain.

 

Not quite true. The physics of involved in making good images and quality audio recordings still give an edge to the person who has the right equipment for the job and the skills to make it work for him. Get off my back! I'm not the one who is afraid of competition. I am always working to improve my videos, and my customers let me know that I'm doing a good job.


I'm speaking only of price. I could bundle similar content on a DVD and sell it for 1/2 of what you'd pay for the individual clips. It's not what people want, so I don't do it anymore. Maybe the membership idea will let me bundle similar content at a discount price.


I haven't tried it out, but there is a checkbox when I add a video that lets me add it to my membership area. I'm not a huge fan of Clips4Sale, so I never really investigated that feature.

MessMaster,

I have always supported your site. I've always had a prominent link from my site back to the UMD. I also look at my referral logs and see that I get a good deal of traffic from the UMD, and I appreciate that. I will always have my own site, as long as I am in this business, because I like the control I have there. I recently added a Wordpress blog to make it easy for me to keep a journal of my adventures and clips. If you give me more options here, I'll put them to use, but I don't see that as taking anything away from my web-site.

I also see how some webmasters might feel the way wamfgcom has described.

Doug

 

Haha Ariel. You know I actually built that wambabes site?

Anyway, you do know that you are competing in a very tiny market that is very saturated. If you started building your download store a year ago, by which time internet download stores were already in full swing, then you maybe could have thought to open it up for outsiders to sell their stuff too, and make more money that way. There is no way for any of us to get rich off of wam. Period. It's just not going to happen. You've got great stuff, but if you spent too much time and money on a wam-only download store that only housed your content, then perhaps you misjudged the size of the market.

 

Ahh okay, that makes a lot more sense - to me membership means rebilling, not 1 off. In that case it deals with my question.

 

I like the site as it is and do not want to pay anything.
Just here to try and get more friends or people to want to find out more about me.

I guess that settles it, then. There is no need for all this store crap, and we can all save a lot of time by suspending production. I, for one, am relieved. I can clear my schedule and start planning that Mediterranean cruise I've been wanting to take. Messmaster can finally go on that sabbatical he's been dreaming of, away from computers, mobile phones and other electronic distractions.

 

Of course a pro would always take better pics because of framing, subject, lighting, etc. But the technology in amateur cameras won't stop getting better. Sensors are getting smaller and less noisy, electronics and processors are getting faster and cheaper, and processing algorithms are getting better. Of course the physics of a larger aperture lend more creative control, and multi-element lenses far exceed point and shoot quality right now. But who knows about the future? Just look at how cheap dslr's that take video are are rivaling cinema cameras like the Red. How long until our iPhones will take hi-def video that's nearly as good?

As far as value, I see what you mean about a DVD being cheaper for your to produce and ship and for the customer to buy, if only because of the processing fees that digital downloads incur. Producers here do have the option to bundle a lot of downloads together at a single price, just like you'd put on a DVD. But then you couldn't also sell that content individually without re-uploading everything again. The new system I'm building will address that!




Great. It's always my hope that all these things can co-exist. Producers will use whatever service they feel comfortable with, and visitors will use whatever they like. The new "independent stores" really only amount to a re-skinning of stores that already exist, but I think a lot of people see it as way more than that.

 

LOL I'm already on my sabbatical every day and night while I work on UMD. I love it. Play some music, crunch some code. Ahhhhhh

 

I let this thread go without comment for several days because it was merely about the changes which MM is planning to incorporate. It was not until MM himself posed the question:





and asked for





that I chimed up.


I really shouldn't have said anything and kept my "thoughts" to myself because I know what this board can be like, but, I didn't.


It was in fact GlamorGunge who posted the original comment:





and I agree. That's what it DOES feel like to some of us. When MM "asked" where the line should be drawn I thought I could explain that it focuses around traffic, in my opinion. GlamourGunge had the good sense to step back at that time, I did not. For my comments I was attacked with criticism's about our quality, described personally as someone who loathes and hates and depicted as a producer who can't keep up to the competition and hasn't made any efforts to improve through our nine years online.


So far there has been reference in this thread to four sources that can imagine how some might feel this way but MM, in all humility, can't wrap his head around that logic, and no doubt never will. Which poses the question; why ask? Still, I was attacked personally and professionally for voicing my "requested" thoughts.


Many questions and comments were put to me within that retort which I have attempted to address below:






Actually sales dropped at wamdownloads.com rather drastically upon the opening of your D/L store system, I'm quite sure everyone felt it and I'm sure Soundguy could come up with a few choice numbers if you really want to know. Since here is where the traffic was (and at the time a 10% savings) I duplicated my store here and sales went back up. Sales at wamdownloads.com increased again when you started having billing issues, which suggests (strongly) that the buying traffic, when it can, is remaining here.





Sure if I can have the revenue that comes with.
Your not really suggesting that your still running in the red, are you?





Actually it is true. I said I don't "need" a store here, I didn't say I didn't have one. Also your stores are "one of your features" are they not?





What I said was "I'll bet every established producer here has asked the question; what would business be like if the umd didn't exist?" Considering now that I am not completely alone in my perspective then obviously some do feel that way, yes. As I've tried to point out an established site only requires traffic and the once friendly Ultimate Messy Directory who used to relay all of that buying traffic is now holding a great deal of it here, in house, with material produced by others, for sale.





I never said or suggested anything of a kind.





No, I'd like it if the umd was still a "directory" and wasn't in direct competition with it's remotely paid advertisers and didn't usurp all the forum images for resale. Having said that it would be foolish of me not to respect that much more traffic is being held here and so yes I do look forward to your changes, as a distant second choice.





Wow, and you sound uncharacteristically angry. Still to address, I don't loath the internet, I stepped out of the printing industry about 12 years back to learn web page design and accommodate my disability. I prefer digital photography although I've never been very interested in photography. Race, creed, color, religion, sexual orientation, I'm told that I'm quite accepting although I'm not too fond of Ben Bernacke.





We have continually added content to our sites with no removals since day one. Each of our members receives a full nine years worth of content and updates during their time there, so I do hope you're not pointing that comment at me.





I am not afraid of amateurs, in fact I consider myself one as this road has never been traveled before, and how would you know what I spend? Likewise the content on this "directory" has gone from information and site promotions to include sales, which is my point. You have changed the direction of this site. Why? Was your Download Store idea not worthy of it's own $10 domain? Were you afraid it couldn't stand alone without the traffic that has been built up through the years as a benign directory?





Actually I brought it up in a pm to you, you never addressed the question. At one point I understood why you could not afford an equal trade as you were only a directory but that has changed so I'm curious why your traffic is somehow more valuable than mine?





Well actually I did. Our forum offers free front page advertising in our "Recent Updates" section with a full sized picture placement, and although you registered in 2004 you've never made a posting or replied to one or used any of our features. There is a user profile system and we offer redeemable credits for posts and replies. Two of the links on that front page that go to your IWAM site are affiliate driven and have generated a total of 6,137 unique hits and zero sales, but I will still run them ;). The other is a good neighbour link attached to your store insertion. That one will be removed soon along with the inserted store as I can now do that with my own store. I also link to your iwam site from wetandmessfetishgirls, wamfetishgirls,com and The Wam Bucket sports a credit link to the umd, seeing as you haven't as yet, signed up for an exchange.





Well if this isn't the first time then obviously I'm not alone with my concerns, or my inability to help you understand. We and perhaps others use this site because... it's got traffic??! Which you sell, trade and yes, give away. Likewise I was under the impression that "Directories" didn't have customers, just advertisers.





Oops dropped the needle there too. The record selling companies did embrace digital, that is what's put on CD's right? To suggest they lost their business model to "better" music is ludicrous. What they lost their business model too was the availability of pirated music via file sharing which they spent money on to try an curtail. Most of those now defunct stores did have a web presence as well.





Well actually I don't see the amateurs (or what you're referring to as amateurs) as the threat. I see them being elevated and prominently displayed by the dozens in direct competition with my paid advertising without much effort, knowledge, or cost on their part because of the features which have recently been incorporated into this Directory by you. Frankly I'd have no trouble with what you're doing if you were doing it on another domain but you're doing it on a Directory which has been gaining noteriety and traffic from others in the industry for years with the understanding that you were a directory and not selling competitive product, that' has changed.

I don't recall asking for an advantage and I wasn't here first, although we have been around for a long time which should suggest that we do offer something of value, have made improvements along the way and can compete. In fact I can personally attest to having more than a few members who have rebilled (at $20/mo) in excess of three years running.

It's true that I made no mention of improving our own site (or sites) as I didn't realize it was required to justify my opinions. Nor did I suggest that I wasn't keeping up. But since you imply that as my weakness, let's review.

Nine years online with weekly then 3x monthly updates and no removals
5 or 6 Cameras, (I can't remember exactly) 2 were waterproof
3 Hosting services
4 Credit Card Processors (GloBill took me for $6000, Probilling for another $800)
6 complete redesigns of wetandmessyfetishgirls.com
4 complete redesigns of wamfetishgirls.com
Original image sizes 512x384, then 640x480, then 800x600, then 1024x768 and now 1200x900
Original video sizes 320x240, then 640x480 and now 856x480
117 payments to umd for advertising credits including a $250 purchase last week
Addition of our own public forum in 2003
Addition of our first independent d/l store in 2006
Addition of wamdownloads.com via vidown in 2007
Addition of UMD's wamdownloads clip store in 2009
Addition of The Wam Bucket link exchange in 2010
Addition of our own download store "Dirty Downloads" a few days ago
And our girls have gotten progressively cuter!





Oh I know that, although it's irrelevance clearly sidesteps the point.





Gee, saturated, really? How did that happen? Yes I started building that beast in October so not quite a year (getting the content ready was the large task) and I did so after I realized that your d/l stores were limited in what they could accept for payment choices, and would not "at the time" except outside links. I was also told that remotely showing your store on a different domain was illegal. I felt no inclination to duplicate your efforts or steal your idea I just wanted better control over the store and if possible a lower overhead. I also wanted the traffic I pay for to end up at my domains. How you jump to me having spent too much time and money on our store, misjudging the market or expecting to get rich off of wam is beyond me. Aside from time a few modifications to the original format cost me to date $25 and I'm seeing a 50% savings on sales over yours or viddown stores 30% commission (NOT that I believe you're overcharging for the services you provide!) Why you believe this has something to do with how some of us feel you may be dominating the wam scene is a little obscure though. FYI... I own and operate six non wam related sites.





Thankyou for that MudDoug, shame that MM can not.


Now the next time I go to answer someone's question around here, please stop me!

 

Sid, I did ask you for your input, and as you have always done, you chimed in. And I appreciate it. I take these discussions seriously, or otherwise I wouldn't even ask the questions. You have personally helped tailor UMD with your input over the years, and even though I didn't agree with all of it, UMD is for the better because of you.

It wasn't until this thread that I realized that there was some actual resentment, from producers no less. Each time I launch a new thing, it's met either with fanfare, or "meh, I'll never use that." But I've never sensed any animosity from people who actually did not want a new feature to exist because of market domination or something. I guess when I posted this thread I was looking for suggestions on how to make my proposal better, not for people to shoot down the whole idea for reasons that never even crossed my mind before.

I am not going to go back and forth anymore, point-for-point because we really don't have time for that. If you really do want me to answer any of your points, please let me know and I will. But I am in a good mood tonight. I don't feel like being in a pissing match. You continue to run your site, and I'll continue to run mine. UMD did go from no business model, to advertising business model, to advertising and sales business model. I don't feel guilty in that because when I quit doing web design for clients, to focus 100% on UMD, that gave me more time to bust my ass, but have fun coding all this "neat stuff" as I like to call it (you may disagree!). UMD is my livelihood, my blood, my sweat, my tears, as I'm sure your business is. We have different business models, and mine is just a bit broader and includes more producers than just me. I'm sorry you and some others feel like I am stepping on your toes or overstepping my boundaries when I put more stuff out there for producers and users to use.

You know what? I'm not sorry. Nobody has ever come to me and say, "Messmaster, I don't think you should add this feature because it'll retain too much traffic to UMD instead of sending it out to sites." This is the first I've heard of it. It seems like some resentment that has been fomenting out there, with people mumbling under their breath or something. Why didn't anyone say anything to me when I launched the download store, if it "hurt" them so bad?

This is what I am going to do. I am going to push forward on the skinning system, for now without the membership areas. What it will be is just a simple way for producers to take their download stores--that are already up and running--and change their background colors and logo and stuff. Just like every other download store allows. I'm not trying to be WalMart, and I'm not trying to ruin your life or kill an entire genre. I'm just adding some colors, man. It is what it is. But in the future, I could expand. If you or other producers don't like the direction that UMD is going, I guess you could abstain from it. But for as long as we're here, you're welcome to continue using us to send you traffic.

 

Neither do I wish to start a pissing match and I've pretty much said what I needed to say.

Consider if you will though that when you've asked how people would feel about... you're already halfway coded and a turnback is unlikely, we know that.

And that a very simple solution to all of this would be to separate the D/L stores to their own domain then you and the 'amateurs' would at least be on equal ground with the rest of us who have supported the UMD for a decade, and your "Directory" listings all over the wam community would be honest once again.

Unfortunately, that's not going to happen, is it?

 

It is already 90% coded, because the download stores already exist. I had not started any changes when I asked the question. I was not asking permission to do it; only suggestions on how it could best be done.


So. A self-imposed split-up of a monopoly, eh? Now I'm Microsoft. Dude this is a wam fetish portal. I am not getting rich off of this. Besides, putting them on separate domains means absolutely nothing; They would still look the same, work the same, and UMD would still advertise it in all the same locations. So what would be the point? Besides, the download store system is 100% tied into UMD, and you know that. Users download their purchases right from their UMD profiles, for goodness sake. To split all this up would take months and months. It might give you some ideological satisfaction, but how in the world does this make it easier for customers who enjoy this service, and why would producers want to be completely separated from the portal? Any other producers out there, do you want this?


It's very hard for me to take offense anymore at things hurled my way. But to call this entire enterprise dishonest, because it now has download stores, that's crazy. You have download stores ON here; Are you participating in its dishonesty? You have a separate download store that offers basically nothing for free. It just sells its own content, and you call this site dishonest because it sells content AND offers free stuff that was voluntarily uploaded by producers like you for free advertising? This used to be a simple text links directory, and it has never stopped growing from there. It got its Ultimate Messy Directory name from that era, and held on to that name even as it expanded beyond mere directory listings. Nobody complained that this "directory" now had a forum and a chat room. Nobody called it dishonest because I added personal profiles, calendars, wam wall, TV, whatever. Nobody accused me of trying to "keep" all the traffic to myself. Not until you felt your business was in competition with mine. The directory-only UMD is no longer here. We do e-commerce too now. That's the reason I can spend so much time on the site instead of working elsewhere. If you don't wish to support this "dishonest" site, then why the hell are you here? If you're such a guardian for the community, then do something about it and build another directory, and you can make it as pure and noncommercial as your vision requires. I'll link to it if you want me to, I'll support it, and I'll even lend you some code. If the 'net needs an "honest," standalone directory, then you should get right on it.