Hey producers! Just wanted to inform everybody that we have a couple of big producers moving in, in the coming months. You see Mark from Wamtec has been adding his catalog about 5 scenes a day, and he's got a lot more. Leonmoomin will also be adding a lot of stuff as well, starting in a week or two.

Our policy on "one What's New plug per scene" is still in effect, meaning it'll be pretty big these next few months as these producers stock up. For the record, Mark has been very adamant that he was willing to forgo What's New as well as Current Top Store, as he's just stocking up his corner of UMD and didn't wish to step on toes. We can do that if it ends up being the best idea, but my position right now is that everyone has been using What's New for all their stuff for years, so it's only fair that his content gets the same treatment when it comes over, albeit in a condensed manner. I could make the change to prevent big producers moving in from showing up in What's New altogether, but it looks like having them there is actually boosting everyone else's sales, too.

What I did do is add a setting that will automatically relegate all of a big producer's What's New items to the bottom of their respective days while they are stocking up. This means that, while they'll still be there, they won't ever be at the top, even though they've been submitted and scheduled months in advance. This is the most fair way I can think of to give these scenes the same exposure as everyone else has had, while not completely drowning out the top What's New positions every day.

One other note is that we're up for a new server setup in the next month. We will have more bandwidth and processing speed to play with (better-looking on-screen trailers anyone?), and we'll be all set to expand storage when we need it. And boy we'll need it.

Peace,
Messmaster

All of this sounds great, MM!

Norman

Personally I think it's nice to see more variety on here.

Fair is fair, but having my new clips totally obscured by producers dumping 10 year old content is getting very frustrating. Maybe the "whats new" section should stick to actual new content? Smaller studios can NOT compete with this. Do the big guys with pay sites really need to have a monopoly on UMD as well?

It's old content, but new on UMD's stores. And it's forced to the bottom of What's New every day, so it does not obscure your stuff. Producers have always moved their inventories here since 2009 when we opened the stores. It's one of the incentives to get them here. You have been adding your content pretty much every other day since January and it's gotten a ton of exposure on What's New over time too, so it's only fair, right?

Also, please check your stats before you conclude that other producers are usurping your sales! Your sales are steady as they have been here. And when you look at your stats and see that you made a sale, probably about 50% of the time some other producers' content was in the customer's basket at the same time (but you can't see that). Producers are assisting and boosting each other all the time, and everybody's sales seem to go up when a new producer moves in because of the cross-sales effect. So the notion of "competition" around here is a bit of a disingenuous concept, at least from my perspective.

Messmaster,
Not wanting this to come off as sour grapes or whatever, but uploading a single clip every other day is slightly diffrent than 5 or 10 clips every day.

Traffic is great. Cross traffic is great. Variation is great. I have problems with none of those things. The issue is excess. I know I can't afford to keep up with posting 5+ videos every day. And there will be several more doing the same? That is something I can't say seems fair to any small studio, not just mine.

So their excess is forced to the bottom each day on the What's New section. That doesn't change the fact that percentage wise, they are completely dominating the page. Especially when you add more producers all uploading daily in excess like that.

I have no complaints as far as my sales. When I said small studios cannot compete, I meant that in regards to the number of videos they have available to post daily. It just seems completely unnecessary. Shouldn't there be some kind of limit? I am guessing my opinion doesn't matter here based on the tone of your response, however I felt compelled to share it since you posted this thread.

You're right that uploading a single clip every other day is way different from inundating the whole What's New with 5 clips a day. I get that, but the balancing factor is that it happens in such a compact time frame. Your content has been marinating on What's New and getting exposure for months. A new producer might have an advantage of "surface area" on What's New for a few months, but everyone else already had the advantage of time and impressions, for a much longer time.

Of course your opinion matters, but I am going to challenge you on your thought just like I expect you to challenge me. I can't really make any decisions for the whole store just based on conjecture. If other UMD producers' sales actually go up because of a new producer moving in, then nobody loses, right? To spend development time actually limiting their exposure would be an idealistic move, but I can' see how it helps anybody from any angle I look at it.

I could def. be wrong and that's why I am listening to you guys for for reasonable challenges to this assertion. Some producers move in and we roll out the red carpet for them for a while, and I have yet to see anybody take a hit from this "unfairness." Can anybody say otherwise this past month or so? Do you think your numbers are down because What's New is so crazy lately? Do you have any other objections other than money and sales?

I really need to upgrade my stats game so we can look and use numbers to make the best decisions here. I'll get on that as soon as I can.

MM