Friday, June 27, 2008

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly

I hate some web sites.

I'm not talking about blogs. Blogs, I like. They're a reflection of the person writing it, and you can--to a certain extent--get to know them based on the subjects they write about. What they say and how they say it gives you a little insight into their mind and their character. You can mark a blog as a "favorite" and come back to it (or add a link to it on your own blog). If you don't like what you're reading--you go find another blog. Pretty simple.

No, the sites I'm talking about are pay sites that just don't quite deliver what they seem to promise.

Maybe I got spoiled by the Punished Brats site. Punished Brats is still one of my favorites, and they're celebrating their 2-year anniversary this month. (Congratulations to David, Pixie, and Eric!) In my opinion, Punished Brats does it right. They update regularly. Their photos are clear and well-lit, as are their movies. Most movies are broken into 2 parts (sometimes 3 or 4, but not often) and you never have to wait long for the next part of any particular scenario to be posted. And when the last part is posted, you have the option to download the seperate parts or the movie as a whole. You can now preview each individual movie that gets posted--a new feature that gets high marks in my book. They have a nice photo gallery of the people who work for them, and some photo-sets that you'll never see anywhere else. And Pixie has "Pixie's Previews", her own little corner (how appropriate!) where she can tell you about recently completed or upcoming shoots. Every now and then there is a video preview of the recent shoots, complete with bloopers and behind-the-scenes snippets. Good stuff!

And then there are--well--other sites.

I'm not going to point fingers and I'm certainly not going to name names--hey, everybody has the right to run their site the way they want to, and many of them put out a product of consistently good quality. But I remember spending the money to join one site, downloading a movie that had been broken down into about 10 parts, loading part one into the Windows Video players--and it looked like they never bothered to light the scene! It was DARK! The girl was cute, the sceneario was decent--but you had to strain your eyes to see what was going on. What kind of production values are those?

And breaking a movie down into 10, 11, 13 parts? That's fine if they get posted in a timely manner. But I've seen parts 1 and 2 posted, and then weeks later part 3 and 4 go up--and then weeks later, parts 9 and 10! WTF? And then again (say it with me) "weeks later"--parts 5 and 6......you get the idea. Not even in order! You can quite literally be waiting for months for the whole movie to go up. You might even have to renew your membership just to be around long enough to do the download. Even if it's an outstanding movie, I just don't have the patience for that.

I've seen sites that promise a particular spanking model or scene or scenario as "coming soon" or "coming shortly" and by the time my membership is up, I'm still waiting for them. You wouldn't think a good product delivered in a timely manner would be that hard to achieve, but apparently it is for some companies.

Maybe the fact that product is good--or at the very least, looks promising--is why I get impatient. And yes, the whole process of lining up talent, filming, editing, etc. takes time. But it sometimes sure feels like the whole thing is being dragged out just so they can keep charging your credit card while you're waiting.

Another complaint of mine is the site that tells you, "Come on and join, it's FREE". I remember one site--long since defunct--that had personal ads. You could preview the ads a little bit. For instance, I could do a limited search--"man" seeking a "woman" for "spanking" between "28" and "28 1/2" in "Minnesota". And you'd get to see maybe 10 ads, usually with a picture and a one-line introduction, and the site would tell you that she has 3 more photos inside as well as a profile for you to read. Perhaps one of the ads would catch your eye and look interesting. And of course, staring you in the face are the words, "join now, it's FREE, and get access" and blah blah blah.

So you click on "join now" and you fill out page after page of registration material and y0u finally complete the registration and they send you an e-mail confirmation, maybe they send you a password if you weren't allowed to pick your own. You go back to the site, log in, do the same search getting more than 10 ads this time and page through them to find the ad that interested you.

You finally locate it. You click on the ad AND.....you get the same picture with a one-line introduction. The other photos? The profile? Oh, that you have to PAY for! A 6- or 12-month membership at very reasonable rates......

In other words, you just went through all that time and trouble of registering and answering questions and filling out information and becoming a member--and you only get access to the same information you could view when your weren't a member????

Can you say, "What a rip?"

I hate some web sites.

5 comments:

Michael said...

Thank you, Dr. Ken for making some good points and giving some helpful hints. Very frustrating when all a site does is use you as an ATM machine, and doesn't deliver on what it promises. Makes you appreciate sites like Punished Brats all the more.

Michael

CJ said...

Dr. Ken thank you I have been thinking about joining a site, but I have not chosen one yet. hmmmm more to think about...

cj

Dr. Ken said...

Michael--I just heard about a site (again, no names will be used) that hasn't updated since January, citing "problems with our server". Dude, if your server is giving you six worth of problems, you need to get a new server! No mention was made as to whether they're stilling charging their members every month....

CJ--well, obviously, you know what site I'd recommend! :-)
My best advice--whatever site you decide on--is to see if you can sign up for just a one-month non-recurring membership. It won't cost you much, and one month is plenty of time to give any site a good "test drive". If you like what you see, you can always sign up for a longer membership later...

Cheryl said...

Ken,

I know what you mean, Ken! This is why I totally avoid pay sites.
Most of the people who are running these particular sites know how anxious spankos are for anyting new and they are more than happy to take advantage of that. I got ripped off by a certain site (won't say which one, but the "broken server" excuse sounds familiar) and totally learned my lesson.
See you in Chicago next month (I hope!)
Smiles,
Cheryl

Dr. Ken said...

Cheryl--
Yes, see you in about 3 weeks!
There are a lot of good sites out there that provide good content. How they update that content is just one of the things you have to take into consideration before signing up for a long membership. And if they seem to have trouble making their listed update schedule--that should always be a big red flag!