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opinion

Web 2.0 Hit Me Hard

Just when, after having Wasteland.com up and running nicely for 12 years now, and thinking that all of my strategies for acquiring traffic were in place and running like a well-oiled machine, along comes Web 2.0!

Blogs! Community groups! User generated content! RSS feeds! The day I finally put it all together six months ago, it was like someone hit me in the back of the head with a green two-by-four. Paid ads, affiliate programs, TGPs and the like are still on the radar, but to stay with the changing ways that surfers access content, and most importantly, find "premium content," has now changed in a significant way.

The following is a little "scrapbook" of my experience with implementing Web 2.0, drawn on my direct experience.

JUMPING ON THE "BLOG-WAGON": I put up a great MySpace site and had over 1,000 "friends" in two days. But then: BOOM! Gone. Violation of TOS by having a hyperlink to Wasteland.com on it (that taught me for not reading the TOS).

The reincarnation, MySpace.com/SukiWasteland, has no direct links to an adult site, but relies completely on name branding. People know how to stick the "dot-com" at the end if they want to see the pretty girl (who is actually me, sitting at my desk in my underwear, posting blog info about BDSM techniques and such). MySpace blog and photo-uploads work costs me about 20 minutes a day, but brings in well over 2,000 unique type-ins a day. So, it's worth the effort.

MORE ON BLOGS: If you want a more "adult friendly" blog host, try Ning.com. They have no restrictions on "adult", and for around $20 a month premium service, will disable their ads on your blog. You can also post links directly to your paysite, TGPs, etc. I have a blog on that service that is currently sending about 300 uniques a day to Wasteland.com.

COMMUNITY GROUPS: Community groups are all the rage right now. Surfers stumble into a community of folks sharing the same interest, and membership is free. They have access to chat, discussion boards and user-generated content upload function; all of which keep them in the loop with multiple ways to upsell to a premium membership at one of the sites run by the webmaster. I personally do not have such a site as of yet (major programming challenges to implement), but if you want a good look at how this works, look at Lars' site, Bondage.com.

THE DARKER SIDE OF WEB 2.0: Affiliates are in danger: Unless the major sponsors go to hosting blogs, community groups and user-generated content sites that track though the affiliate ID, there is serious trouble ahead for affiliates. My guess (and I hope it is wrong), is that in the next 16 months, the TGP model will be severely affected by Web 2.0 technology. So, if you are in that system of revenue generation, email your sponsors and encourage them to implement this new system.

WHAT'S NEXT? If you are an affiliate marketer, start a blog, make a MySpace and YouTube page. Use sponsor-supplied content to make a PornoTube.com page with your affiliate links embedded. Additionally, ask your sponsor for high-definition hosted galleries.

For more information from Colin, links to hosted blogs, HD movies and more, visit SpiceCash.com.

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Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission is prohibited.

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