Logisitics of running a hosted hardcore site?

[jabez shrew]

Hi folks,

Thanks very much for replying to my posts about the legaility of hosting a hardcore site. I very much take the point that it nearly all depends on whether the offering is really a commercial proposition. I think it will be and just need to know a lot more about the logistics involved. The actual technical considerations don't concern me as I work in IT and so understand those aspects - I just need to know more about the actual business and here about the experiences that you all seem to have in abundance.

The website will be a picture-set, content-based subscription site. No physical product will be sold. 99% of the content will be created by the company that I set up.

These are my questions:

1: If you host in the US (due to cost and more relaxed hosts), do you have an American firm acting as a middle man? Or is your sole corporate entity based in the UK and the hosts just invoice direct to the UK?

2: Who is the best third-party payment processor (ccBill, iBill etc) and why? Again, are all transactions between the payment processor and a uk based company?

3: What is needed to register copyright over any images that are produced?

4: A decent lawyer specialising in internet pornography is essential. Anyone know of one? or two?

5: Is additional paid for content (pornholio etc) worth the money?

6: What is the best route to market in your views? The ones I've identified are (not in order of importance):

- Plugging (on here for example)
- Linking through similar themed sites and webrings
- Search engines
- Reviews (Jane's reviews etc)
- Allowing the site to be cracked for an initial period via password sites
- Measured release of certain content (heavily branded) onto p2p networks

Any more? Any comments on these?

7: Presumably, if the site is a monthly subcription, then monthly update of content is the best. Does anyone have any idea about the quantity that should be added? I know that is a bit of a "horses-for-courses" type question by I'm very intrigued about the number of updates that people find keeps the punters happy.

8: Does anyone have any opinions about how many picture sets (assuming the content is good, original and novel) a site ought to start with? The obvious answer is as much as you can afford but I'd be interested to hear about peoples experiences.

Thanks for reading all this. I hope I don't come across as some kind of knowledge vampire. I just know that planning is everything.

If anyone wants to email me directly about this or anyother pieces of information they think may be relevant then please feel free to contact me on jabez.shrew@zen.co.uk

Regards,

Jon

[Paul L]

Whilst I agree with some of the comments from Ruscle, I have had lots of invaluable help from some on this board, and whilst no-one will give you all the "inside" help, I think it is fair to comment on some of your points.

1) We have a UK Limited Company and no middle man. We host in the US and the payment processor pays us direct to a UK bank.

2) We use CCBill as promary processor and have found them excellent with great tech support. Also use Verotel as backup (again good) and Nochex for processing UK debit cards (Nochex are excellent, pity they only accept UK people)

7) Personally, I feel if you only updated monthly you would get a very poor response. People expect a lot more these days. We update a new exclusive set each day plus 2 exclusive videos a week.

8) I would say this depends on how specialized your content is. If it is very, very specialized then you can get away with less content compared to a site that is doing a more mainstream topic.

Cheers

Paul

[Scott Rider]

Bloody hell! Who is this buxom beauty....?

[jabez shrew]

Hi Ruscle,

Thanks for the reply.

1) Take your point about this being off topic. I posted this before realising that there was another forum.

2) I'm not expecting anyone to do the ground work for me. All I'm asking is some simple initial questions so that I can start looking in the correct direction. You have worked in this business for over 20 years and have lots of contacts and experience. I don't have any of this and can't hope to gain this information in the short period of time I can spend determining if I should make a go of this idea. Therefore, I'm using the most fundamental aspect of knowledge sharing - a process used for millennia - and that is ask people who know for some information. Based on your logic, there is little point in having an education system because some child will go up to a teacher and ask "What is the Theory of Relativity". The teacher will look over there glasses snidely and say "Piss off - either read it in a book or spend 5 years at university and then you will find it out"!

People will either respond to these questions or they won't but it is the only way that information can be passed round short of having to spend 20 years finding out the hard way. A few useful pointers, like those I have received, can make all the difference in being able to formulate some new ideas and work out exactly where to concentrate my efforts.

The reason I'm asking these questions is because I'm pretty sure that it is going to be considerably harder and more expensive than I can allow for.

All I've asked is for some general information about people's experiences so that I can do further ground work. It's not like I've asked someone to actually set up the website and the product. This is all part of the homework.

Thanks,

Jon

[jabez shrew]

Actually, to be fair given my previous tirade, my initial question should have been "Where would I find some information on how to run a porn site?".

But since this isn't the most well documented industry and I suspect that people would have said to ask people here, I cut out the more polite step and just asked some questions anyway.

Sorry if this seemed lazy but this is one of the ways to do research.

Jon

[jabez shrew]

Paul,

Thanks for the information. It's very useful.

Regards,

Jon

[Ben Jones]

To quote Morrissey:

Why Don't You Find Out For Yourself?


I now anticipate being flamed for professing an admiration for the Mighty Moz.

[jabez shrew]

Ben,

Morrissey is fantastic so you're quote is welcome.

But, even the simple information Paul provided, has widened my knowledge, saved a ton of effort and money. Thats the way it works - anything you can't find out from other people for whatever reason, you find out for yourself.

Thanks,

Jon

[Joe A]

1: No middle man is required for hosting in the States.. The lists of these is endless as is the cost.

2: A lot of us in the UK use and also who are UK based and accept cc's and UK debit cards

3: Are you going to produce your own content ? If so you as the photographer own the content. If you are buying the content then the provider may own the copyright and they license it to you.

4: A lawyer is that important as far as I've seen in the 5 years I've been a webmaster.

5: Upsells to other content or you paying for it and offering to your member si your choice.

6: I would start an affiliate programme through CCBill and then you'd need to have a lot of galleries to sell the site.

You need to be listed on the SE's, so optimisation for the correct key words/phrases is very important.

There are other ways I obtain traffic but I won't publish them .. They are legal methods



7: Monthy subs and updating is subject to the niche. Some sites update almost daily as there's a lot of content about. I work a small niche with limited content so I update once a month.

8: Depending on the content, anything from 1000 pics + vids etc upwards.