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Have things really changed all that much?

Back when Steve and I ... and many others too ... started selling adult products on the Net we would scarcely have believed that the conditions that exist today could have ever been possible. Back then we hooked up to our ISP through a 28.8k modem and we understood that there would be a delay between hitting a link and having anything appear on the screen.

The day we were able to use our first 56k modem was an incredible experience; things happened so much faster and we were right there in the world of instant communications. Sure, there was still some delay between hitting a link and having it appear on the screen ... and the best possible speed we could crank out of that modem was nothing more than about 33k ... but it was fast baby. It was so blisteringly fast!

Of course download limits were small, bandwidth cost an arm and several legs and if you went over your limit for the month then you were in for a huge bill at the end of the cycle. And that bill was paid at both ends; surfers paid it to their ISPs and Webmasters paid it to their hosts.

And we shouldn't forget that back then lots of people surfed the Net with images turned off - that's how concerned people were about the cost of accessing the Internet.

Selling under those conditions wasn't easy though. You couldn't just throw a gallery together and not care about the download speed. You had to really tear the intestines out of the images you used so that the file size was small enough not to piss the surfers off because everyone knew that the surfers didn't want to be kept waiting and if they were then they could always use the back button to escape and go somewhere else. And they didn't want to be fooled into being shown images that had huge file sizes either.

It was tough but those who could produce sites that kept the surfers interested and happy made money while those who wanted to produce sites with lots of graphics and images that had huge file sizes went broke because they couldn't pay their bandwidth bill.

Now we don't have to worry about any of that do we? All the surfers that really matter are on broadband and the issue of download speed is totally a thing of the past isn't it?

Well maybe there are a few surfers around who might still be too stingy to surf the Net on anything but a 33.3k dial up account but we don't have to worry about them now do we? They're never going to buy anything from us are they?

If you think that way then you're not alone. There are a lot of Webmasters out there who think that in today's world of high speed Internet connections and low-cost bandwidth we don't have to be tied to the limitations of file size and download speed. I've even heard sponsors declare that they're not interested in any prospective member who is still on dial up.

Maybe that's fair enough but maybe those Webmasters and sponsors who think like that are just not in touch with reality and perhaps they haven't even bothered to look very closely at their sign up stats. If they had they might be singing a slightly different refrain.

There's no doubt that there are plenty of surfers out there who are on broadband connections but that's no real indication that they're anymore likely to join an adult website than someone who is on dial up. Let's not forget that having a broadband connection isn't an option for everyone who is out there on the Net.

Let's also not forget that, even though a surfer might have a broadband connect, for various reasons his or her connection speed may be no better than someone on the fastest dial up connection and some people may using devices other than PCs and laptops to access your sites and their download speed isn't going to knock your socks off.

Even if they are using a PC or a laptop and via a broadband connection that connection may be shared with so many others that the download speed won't be able to cope with big file sizes. So those prospective members aren't going to hang around to see what you're selling but instead they'll 'bounce' off to some other site that does cater for them.

And that's where looking closely at your web stats and even your sign up stats can tell you something important about the people who are visiting your sites. Even in today's politically correct world where surfing porn sites at work is almost worthy of a death sentence lots of people still do it.

Just have a look to see the times of day when traffic spikes to your site occur and have a look at the time of day when most of your signups come in and you'll see that a substantial amount of them come during office hours. Now those guys might be on a broadband connection but they might be stuck trying to access your sites through overcrowded corporate connections or even public WiFi sites ... and what will they do if they have to wait will a 100kb file slowly dribbles into their browser?

The good old days taught us to be frugal with bandwidth and file size. Perhaps even today that's something we really do need to keep in mind if we're serious about making money.