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Well that was a great weekend. I sometimes thought about work but didn't do much of it. Instead Steve and I took our cameras down to the beach and spent time taking photos.

No, they weren't those sort of photos ... in fact the fewer people we could get in the shots the better. Instead we shot photos of the beach and the bay coming to life as the sun came up.

Sometimes there is a life out there beyond your desk and the monitors that line it and if you haven't been out there into that world in a while then you should. Regardless of where you live in the world this is a great time of year to be out there enjoying some reality.

When was the last time ...
... you checked your sponsors to see if they had changed their terms of service, or their payout levels, or if they're even still in business?

In one of my columns in the recent newbie series over on Porn Resource I urged people to always read the fine print in their sponsors' terms of service and that really is very important, you should do it every time you sign up with a new sponsor.

Equally important is just staying in touch with your sponsors. No affiliate program is set in stone and these days no sponsor is set in stone either. Conditions can change frequently and just to keep their heads above water many sponsors change their payouts and their terms of service and it's up to you to keep up with those changes.

Many sponsors actually email their affiliates when things change but not all of them do. Some make major changes while others disappear overnight and they never tell anyone. Even if your sponsor does email you when they make changes there are a lot of affiliates who don't bother reading those emails ... are you one of those?

So take the time to stay in touch with your sponsors or you just might find that you're promoting a sponsor who has disappeared ... or one that has changed all their affiliate links ... and instead of making money you're just burning your bandwidth.

How can you tell?
Have you ever found yourself wondering if something you're planning is going to be a complete waste of time because there's just no interest in what you're planning? Of course the easy way to find out if there is any interest in what you're planning is to just jump onto your favorite webmaster board and ask.

But then you may not want to let people know what you're planning. There's also the problem of whether or not the answers you get will be genuine and how you will be able to tell the genuine answers from those that aren't.

Another way to get at least some feeling for whether or not your latest plan might fly is to hit the boards but say nothing. Instead of asking what other webmasters think just spend some time skimming through posts for the last month or so to see what has been said about whatever you're planning and that will give you a fair idea of the level of interest that's out there.

Don't limit yourself to just one board though ... hit as many of the adult boards as you can find because some boards may have a lot to say about what you're planning while others will have almost nothing.

Of course just because there's been little or no discussion on the boards about you're planning doesn't mean that you should forget about it but if there has been plenty of discussion about it in the past but none for months then perhaps that is a signal that whatever you're planning has a good chance of failing.

For example if you were planning on building a TGP then you might think twice if you had been looking at a popular board that I visited a few minutes ago. They have a forum for TGP webmasters but there hasn't been a post in there for the last 30 days.

Now that may be a signal that might suggest to you that interest in TGPs is waning but then again it might just mean that this particular board doesn't get many visits from webmasters who are interested in building TGPs. That's why it's important to look around at all the big boards before you make a decision to go ahead with your plan or forget about it.

And now I'm away ... my ride to the office has arrived and there's coffee waiting for me when I get there so don't ever stand between me and my first coffee of the day.