A couple years ago I started a thread here called “What’s wrong with Playgirl?” and several people mentioned that they switched from Epoch to Safecharge, even though their affiliate page and their customer support page said they used Epoch. I just checked today by doing a false join and it looks like they’re back with Epoch (or at least that’s what I saw when I got to the page to enter credit card info). I’m tempted to actually join to see if I get credit for the sale (and to grab some photos to use for promotion).
I was curious if anyone here is still promoting Playgirl and if so, when was the last time you made a sale, and more importantly, how do you promote them? Are you just using their banners or did you join the site and grab some photos to use for your blog (because they don’t provide promo material to affiliates, right?).
I have a dream that some day a big sponsor who actually has their act together (like Badpuppy, Gunz Blazing, Stunner, Buddy Profits, etc.) will gobble up Playgirl and turn it into the porn megasite powerhouse I think it could have been under the right management. True, I suppose some would say that Sean Cody, Randy Blue, Chaos Men, etc. are the “new” Playgirl (where straight women and gay men now go to see nude guys), but I still think there’s a huge value in the Playgirl brand and their extensive archive of content. If I had the cash and knew of a way to contact whoever is running it now I’d make them an offer.
Uh, let me see here, Playgirl offers only banners for its promotion, so you want to join the site, and use member content for promoting the site, without any permission? That doesn’t sound right to me.
I have never made a sale with Playgirl. They were actually thinking about hiring me at one point to help them figure out their online site and sales. I stupidly gave them a bit of free advice, they took it and ran and I never saw a dime or a contract, and they didn’t ever bother really doing anything I told them they should anyway.
Then they were stopping publishing the magazine, now they’re publishing again. I don’t think they have a clue how to make it in the online world, or they didn’t anyway, I haven’t looked at them for ages. It’s the same story as a lot of studio sites that have been dragged kicking and screaming into the online world … old biz models and old ways of doing things don’t always translate well to the web.
But I wouldn’t buy a membership and use their content. I had purchased a membership to English Lads. The site doesn’t give out any cock pics, but it was selling for me, so I wanted a membership just so I could see the cocks I was writing about. I never planned to use any of the content, just whatever he provided to affiliates. Anyway, long story short, I forgot about my cookie when I signed up and ended up earning a commission. So I wrote EL to tell him about it.
He refunded my membership and said he didn’t actually encourage wm’s to join and he has cancelled more than a couple of accounts of wm’s who used the content they got from their membership. Again, I never planned to use anything from his member’s area, I just wanted to see a model’s huge uncut cock so I could talk about it intelligently, I didn’t want a free membership, I didn’t want a commission … I was perfectly happy to pay for it.
Given that, I wouldn’t ever bother doing it again and I certainly wouldn’t just take content from the member’s area of a site like Playgirl. You’re asking for trouble.
You mean they haven’t updated their actual site in ages? This is one reason I’m thinking about joining, to see if the site is still active.
As for why to promote them, sometimes I do really good with sites that other affiliates have given up on. But in the case of Playgirl, they may just be a lost cause.