Recently I decided to take a look at some of the popular TGP's: what they were doing, and how they were doing it. I saw the good. I saw the bad. I saw the ugly. I also saw opportunities; and I'll share a few of them with you as I go along and build My First TGP!
"Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue:"
With 14 years in the Wedding business before becoming a Professional Porn Monger, it is no wonder that such rhymes still course through my consciousness from time to time. On this occasion, however, the old saying does not refer to the Bride's trimmings, but to my latest project: building a TGP.
If you've ever wondered what it would take to build and operate a Thumbnail Gallery Post (TGP), or perhaps you already own one and would like to pick up (or share) a few new ideas, then follow along with this new series and watch me do something that I've never tried before. It should be entertaining ~ and enlightening.
Something Old
When I started building adult sites in 1997, free-hosted TGP galleries were my vehicle of choice. My first forays involved simple gallery pages with 10 "CyberErotica" supplied photos, 2 banners for their current program, and a "123" counter. I made a few sales, but the time spent manually submitting to several hundred TGPs did not justify the effort involved. I started building AVS sites, and used the TGP galleries to send them a ton of traffic, and made even more sales; still the process was tedious, and it was not my only project at the time.
I stopped playing with the TGPs later in '98, and haven't really done anything with them since, with the exception of a few small projects to test the effectiveness of products like ThumbsPlus as a quick gallery building tool, and LinkUp PRO, an auto-submitter that dramatically minimizes the time needed for gallery submissions. I was unable to invest the time necessary to maximize these two tool's profit potential, and so did not adopt them as part of my ongoing daily regimen. Still, I have long flirted with the idea of trying them again, and of even building my very own TGP.
Something New
There has been a lot of talk about TGP's and the TGP2 project lately, all of which has served to rekindle my curiosity about the mechanics involved in such an undertaking. This left me thinking now may be a good time for me to fire one of these bad boys up, and see if I can add a few new ideas to the mix:
I'll reveal some of my favorite, oldest, newest, and best tricks in this series, as well as the thought processes behind them. Regardless of your level of experience, there's bound to be something that will get you thinking here; and even if you never want to build a TGP, you'll pick up a few useful tips and techniques.
This project will be an evolving creature that will unfold over time. It will take several intermediary forms during its development, and its completion will not be the end of one experiment, but the first step in a much larger one. Flexibility and automation, efficient traffic management, maximum bandwidth reduction, effective security, and profitable traffic filtering are all among my goals. Let's see how I do. ...Flexibility and automation, efficient traffic management, maximum bandwidth reduction, effective security, and profitable traffic filtering are all among my goals.
In my next installment, I'll setup a site for My First TGP, then select a server script to build and automate it. I'll install and customize the script (hopefully!), and end up with a "finished" TGP. Stay tuned, this'll be fun! ~ Stephen
