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Cheap websites, bad advice and dating phone calls
Well after this crazy week all I can say is thank goodness it's Friday because we need to find time to take a deep breath and relax. While some analysts are suggesting that the coming year is going to be a bleak one for marketers both on and off line as businesses cut their spending I sure don't see that happening in our neck of the woods.

And there is still plenty of money to be made from affiliate marketing too. Most of our time these days is taken up with providing text for other people but we're still seeing good sales from old and new sites and we're also seeing some interesting income from some of the rev-share sponsors we promote.

I noticed one rebill the other day that has been happening for nearly three years! I think that the clue with that particular rebill is that it's for a niche site that really does work hard to provide a great product for the members as well as a community experience too.

So don't let yourself get depressed by the gloom and doom that is currently going around in economic circles. Things may get tough here in adult but if you are building a solid foundation and developing your own traffic sources then you will survive.

Cheap websites
Surviving long-term is more than can be said for some small businesses that are trying to get online in mainstream. Just this week I saw a programmer on a mainstream board enquiring about some cheap web development; evidently he had a client who wanted an eight page e-commerce site and really didn't want to spend more than $A500.

Somebody gave him the advice he needed and he was off to build a cheap website that probably won't sell much at all. These days if you want to make real money then you certainly have to spend real money too; 'cheap' and 'free' are terms that you need to delete from your vocabulary if you are genuine about making money in mainstream or adult.

Bad Advice And right there is one of the more interesting differences between mainstream and adult. As Steve and I wander around the different boards the advice we see people get on mainstream boards is just terrible and often seems to have little basis in reality. Yet on adult boards people who need advice generally get just what they need to succeed.

I'm not sure just why that is but the cheap website is just one of the crazy pieces of advice we've seen given on mainstream boards. A while ago we saw a person who had really worked hard to develop a major site that sold collectables told that she should abandon the site because it had lost its top Google spots and go and build another one.

Earlier this week we saw a programmer told that he should ditch PHP4 because PHP5 would give him much more freedom. When he asked what he should do with all his clients who wanted work done in PHP4 he was told to ditch them too.

It's beginning to get to the stage where we should perhaps be encouraging our competitors to go to those boards for advice because if they do they won't be our competitors for much longer.

And now I see that I'm not the only one who thinks that mainstream boards are not the great source of information most of them would have you believe. Steve just pointed out a newsletter that arrived in the inbox a few moments ago. It comes from an SEO expert and he too finds that advice that people get on forums can be sadly lacking.

So be happy that, all things considered, we are much better served by the major forums that are around in adult. If you have questions then the answers you will get from those forums are more likely to be helpful than what you might find over in mainstream.

Dating phone calls
Another strange mainstream approach I saw this week involved a dating site in Canada. Adult dating sites have been having some bad press this week but I don't think we will go there but the Canadian dating site is worth looking at.

They have been having a lot of trouble with credit card fraud ... just as most of our sponsors have here in adult. But their answer to the problem was not to increase the scrubbing rate of the cards but to have someone phone the person who has applied to join the site to confirm their credit card details.

They announced this new move in a press release and I have to admit that it's left me wondering whether they are genuinely serious about doing business online. What if the person who has tried to join is on a dial up connection? Calling him or her back to confirm their credit card details may just not be possible.

What if the person does not want to give out their phone number? I could see that as a major stumbling block because most people would see it as exposing themselves to even more telemarketer harassment.

And then there is the possibility that joining a dating site might fall into the category of impulse buying for many. An impulse can come and go in just a few seconds and if you have to wait till someone calls you back before you can actually get into the site then the impulse can wither and die rather quickly.

There is no doubt that mainstream is way ahead of adult in some areas but in others they seem to be so far behind that you have to wonder if they ever make any real money.