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JBM:
Brad's weapon of choice is the chinese flying star. How would
you
have defended yourself if the board war had escalated any
further?
DrinkingHard:
Well since I'm from Canada I think I am going to
have to go with
something like an attack beaver. I will run up and throw the
beaver on Brad and let him knaw the shit out of him and then
roll
around on the floor laughing like a little school girl! LOL!
Brad's such a character and he plays it better than anyone
I
know! Brad's old school and knows the game, he's seen the
puppet show
and the strings. I admire guys like him because they
don't fall for the bullshit and see through it. He calls it
like
he see's it, be it good or bad, he's ruffled alot of feather
over
the years but he's still here LOL! He's likea bad case of
gonneria, he never goes away!
We had a bad falling out because of an advertising campaign
and
we played it up pretty well. I think I pushed things a bit
far and
would like to apologize to MFM as some of the stuff went a
bit
overboard. I still cry in my Mexican Poncho every night thinking
of how much fun we had in Tijuana together. :)
I think JBM is a great resource as they get a lot of program
owners and players posting where on other boards they are
a
little more reluctant to post. I'm very happy Brad and I worked
out our differences, I hate burning bridges and I know he
does
too. Hopefully the Siccash Lobster and GTS Thumbzilla can
connect
at the next Internext and we can do a very naughty hardcore
shoot
together ;)
JBM:
Tell us where you are from and what you did before the internet.
DrinkingHard:
I'm from a little hick town called Orangeville, it's
about 40
minutes north of Toronto Canada. I've lived in Orangeville
growing up then I moved to Toronto to go to school and then
after I was
done college I worked in downtown Toronto. I also lived in
Vancouver for a year and had an absolute BLAST! Still have
many
great friends out there and miss it everyday!
Before adult I was working in the marketing department of
a
corporate apartment rental agency in Toronto (basically we
rented
furnished apartments to business travellers). When September
11th
went down our business dropped significantly and they had
to lay
off 40% of the company and marketing guys were just not in
the
budget. I was very pissed off about being laid off because
I
really enjoyed working for this company and I enjoyed the
people
I worked with. I decided then and there that I was going to
live
life on my terms and not allow the economy, politics and or
the
Al Kaida to influence my career.
JBM:
How did you get involved in the adult biz?
DrinkingHard:
I ran an adult humor website called drinkinghard.com
basically
the site was a hobby for me, I posted up pictures of funny
pictures/movies that people sent to me. I was constantly having
to change hosting companies here in Canada because bandwidth
was
extremely expensive and I was always going over my allotment.
To
compensate for the hosting costs I began to add banners to
the
site and dabbled in the adult advertising. My first adult
sponsor
was Amateur Pages, they paid out 6 cents a click. I still
remember my first $22 US payment from AP, I thought it was
the best thing
in the world and I bought a case of beer with the money LOL!
After I lost my job I started dabbling in galleries and started
submitting like a madman. Back in the day it was a lot easier
to
get listed but there were certain rules in place. At the time
you
could not submit more than one gallery a per day (I did 2
a day)
then they said you could not do more than 2 (and I did 5).
Then
they said they would only take 5 (and I was doing 12) LOL!
I was
submitting from different domains, different IP's, different
usernames, different e-mails, different sponsor codes you
name
it! Anything to get more traffic, I don't think I was being
shady
because all my galleries worked and I gave the surfer exactly
what they wanted. I just pushed the envelope alot where alot
of people
were afraid of "ruffling feathers".
JBM:
Is it true you got your nickname from your joy of drinking
Mike's
Hard Lemonade?
DrinkingHard:
You know I used to like Mike's Hard Lemonade when
it first came
out, we used to pound it because it was like 8% alcohol LOL!
But
I found it gave me really bad belly aches, probably because
of the
acidity or maybe the fact that I would drink 12 in a night
plus a
bunch of shots. LOL! I know it's hard to believe but I am
not an
alcholic, most of my friends now call me "drinking moderately"
LOL! The name Drinkinghard came from my origional website
that I
started and in retrospect I kinda wish I could change nicknames.
You know how hard it is to turn down a drink when you go to
a
convention and everybody is like "DRINKINGHARD! DRINKINGHARD!"
LOL!
JBM:
Tell me about Gallery
Traffic Service
DrinkingHard:
Sure, basically what do is sell advertising on some
of the
world'slargest TGPs (Thumbnail Gallery Posts). We sell gallery
spots, banner spots, text links and other advertising options.
We
act on behalf of these TGP site owners and handle the customer
service, accounting, back end gallery management, waitlist
management, in some cases updating of the sites and accounts
receivable. Believe it or not there is a ton of work in what
we
do and Magnus does not always have his thumb up his ass (well
maybe
my ass!)
We have a full time in-house staff of 13 in our Orangeville
office (just north of Toronto), which includes 3 full time
salesguys, 1
programmer, 1 designer, 2 accounting people, 5 admin people
and
little old me :)
GTS
started back about 2 years ago I ran into a young newbie
named Cameron at a webmaster party at the hard rock in Toronto.
Cameron
was working for Xapster (Of Teeniefiles.com fame) and he was
doing the updating for Teeniefiles and some other sites Xapster
owned.
At the time I was kissing Cameron's ass because I knew if
I
snuggled up to him he would list my galleries at Teeniefiles
and
I could make more money. Cam and I became quick friends and
business partners.
We had an idea one day since Cam was updating Xapster's sites
as
well as Madthumbs and selling some advertising on them. Why
don't
we create an advertising agency that will handle the sales
for
these sites, we also approached some other big TGP's that
were
not under Cybercat's portfolio. They seemed a bit cynical
at first
about the idea of selling advertising as Cybercat was the
big dog
on the block and no one thought there was any room left in
the
market for another advertising agency. Our first month (December
2003) we launched GTS
with 6 site packages
(Madthumbs/Teeniefiles, Mature-Post/Call-Kelly, Jizzhut, Pinkworld,
Video-Post and Shemp) we could not BELIEVE how much demand
there was for traffic!! From
the very beginning we knew we had a major hit on our hands.
Our
site owners were overjoyed as they were making more money
than
they have ever had and we were doing all the work for them.
Over
the year we have added 17 more sites that we sell advertising
for
(most recently Men.com,
Porno.com
and Gaysex.com).
About 8 months
ago, I made Cameron an offer he could not refuse and I bought
him
out of his share of GTS.
We are still great friends and we
work/talk to each other everyday, no drama unfortunately ;)
JBM:
Can you send me a sample of lets say 300k hits just to be
sure I
want to purchase traffic?
DrinkingHard:
LOL! Sure no problem, can I also come over build
your galleries,
make your tours, check your stats, cash your cheques and make
you
and your wife breakfast? Hehe!
All kidding aside we don't really allow test traffic, and
the
reason for this is because we are almost sold out on every
site
we sell advertising on. We simply don't have the tester traffic
available to let people try sites. Plus if we did let people
try
traffic you know we would have every single person in adult
icqing us asking to try 10 different packages and then not
buying LOL!
JBM:
Now and then I buy traffic from different sources just to
see
what's out there. I have never been thrilled with the results.
Maybe I just have bad luck. What makes you stand apart from
other
traffic streams?
DrinkingHard:
I am too one of those guys that have spent money
on campaigns
that have not always worked out and god does it ever suck
when that
happens. Unfortunately in our line of business we can't guarantee
results, could you imagine if I could read a magic ball and
know
exactly how much I would make on every campaign?! I would
be a
billionaire like Brad Shaw!! ;)
In all honesty we try our best here to set expectations for
our
buyers, we give them rough traffic estimates that we think
they
should receive. We also try and match up their advertising
with a
suiting TGP/site that can best fit their niche they are
promoting. We are always rooting for our buyers to make money
because we
know if they do well, they will continue to buy from us and
everyone
goes home happy.
JBM:
Any tips on how to make purchased traffic convert?
DrinkingHard:
Make sure you have optimized your galleries, if you're
buying
paid spots MAXIMIZE the amount of links that the TGP site
you are
buying will accept. Show the surfer that this is just the
tip of
the iceberg of what you're going to get in the members area.
Use
ultra clear pictures/movies, quality makes a HUGE difference!
Also test your galleries on a free traffic source before
you
decide to make a major traffic purchase. It's best to know
what
kind of traffic converts best with your galleries, once you
find
that traffic buy as much as you possibly can! LOL!
JBM:
How do you see the state of the adult industry at the moment?
DrinkingHard:
I think we're in a pretty good state right now, I
used to be one
of those people who thought the sky was falling every month.
But
after spending a lot of time with veterans who have made alot
of
money in this industry I feel we are probably in one of our
better states ever. Back in the day, these veterans were just
hoping for
one more month worth of income, nowadays there are more options.
Sure Epoch holds a stranglehold on the processing market but
there are options! There will always be more competition as
time ticks
on. 2257 was such a huge issue last year and now the hype
has
more or less died down, look at the Acadia situation last
year.. Where
are they now? I honestly think we're in a much better place
that
we ever have been. There is also a lot of consolidation going
on
with the larger sites swallowing up the smaller ones, not
so much
merging, but buy outs. I think this is great because it takes
the
dingy spectre of the adult world out of the basement and into
the
mainstream.
JBM:
Any predictions of what the future holds?
DrinkingHard:
A lot of double anal!!! Shaddup Magnus ;)
Hehe the future holds a ton of promise and there is still
a TON
of money to be made in this industry. Alot of older guys in
the
industry always whine and complain it's not as easy to make
money
as it used to be, and there is some truth in that. The reason
they are not making the big bucks anymore is because they
are running
off an old business model. Business models must be adapatable
and
constantly changing with the market. I personally am a big
believer in the old saying "the trend is your friend".
What I
mean by that is that if you are not following the trends and
embracing
them then you are a dead duck. I see people fighting against
Peer
to peer networks and piracy and all these other things that
will
never go away. Why not stop fighting it and figure out how
to
make a buck off it? I never understood spending that much
time and
energy fighting a war you can't win? Remember this if nothing
else... You can always make more money but you can never make
your time back ;)
JBM:
What is it like to be fingered by a customs agent?
DrinkingHard:
Now let me tell you this is something I know well...
VERY WELL!
LOL! The handcream they use is superb, but sometimes I prefer
a
nicer lubricant something that will not irritate my choda.
;)
In all seriousness I am not a criminal (yet) and the problems
I
have with custom agencts in the US all stem back from an incident
about 4 years ago where I was denied entry to the US. I was
flying down to visit my Dad who lives in the US and has a
green card
(thank you very much!). I had a one way ticket and I had just
lost my job, they thought I was going to move down to the
states to
work and live off the US system. Plus at the time the US was
on
high alert and was watching everything like a hawk. I always
get
access to the states now but I always have to go early to
explain
the denied entry situation to the customs agents. What a pain
but
oh well that is the price to visit the US. Hopefully one day
the
denied entry will come off my record and I can come down and
not
have to show up at the airport 4 hours early LOL!
JBM:
Tell us something that no one knows about you.
DrinkingHard:
My real name isn't Mark, it's Brendan. My parents
were retarded
and decided to call me Mark (my 2nd name) instead of my real
name
Brendan. LOL!
Brendan sounds so 90210 and non-butch, I apologize now to
all
buyers that are named Brendan. LOL! 10% discount next month!
JBM:
If you lost everything tomorrow, what kind of work would you
be
looking for?
DrinkingHard:
I think Magnus and I would become "Carnies".
We would travel
across Canada in a trailer working for a travelling
carnival/circus. He would be the guy who try's to swindle
money
out of you at the ring toss and look down your girlfriend's
shirt, and I would be the fat smelly guy in the ticket booth
eating corn
dogs like there is no tomorrow.
In addition to GTS,
I also own several other businesses... We own
part of a hosting company (Sinxstar.com),
a start up high-speed
wireless internet company that offers high speed access to
people
who live in rural country areas (http://withoutwires.ca/).
We
also own a small network of paysites, TGP's, adult humor sites
etc...
In addition to this we own several rental properties here
in
Canada that we rent out, mostly triplexes, fourplexes, fiveplexes
and such. We also offer property management
services to other rental property owners that do not have
the
time/experience to do it themselves.
JBM:
Can I order just 8 hits? How much would that cost?
DrinkingHard:
For you? Special price ;)
Chinese ok? Let me warm up our chinese hit bot!!!! *Magnus
puts
on his chinese bandanna and starts clicking on Siccash's tours
like
a madman*
JBM:
Anything you want to plug?
DrinkingHard:
Would just like to mention again that we now sell
premium type-in
advertising on Men.com, Porno.com
and Gaysex.com. These
sites
have absolutely dynamite traffic and you would be crazy not
to try it
out. Also we are launching our own free host for our gallery
customers. That way it reduces the costs for them and it will
keep more money in their pockets! We will soon have even more
traffic
available for our traffic hungry buyers so keep in touch!!!
:)
JBM:
Thanks for your time!
DrinkingHard:
Thanks a bunch Shok and JBM for the interview! See
you all at the
donkey show in Cancun!!! :)
Mark Hurson
President
Gallery Traffic Service
http://www.gallerytrafficservice.com
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