This might be a long winded post, you’ve been warned.

Jesus, I don’t even know where to start with this one.. haha. It’s not really a rant I guess. I’m not mad, pissed off, anything like that.

Here’s what’s up.. one of the ways I stay on top of my game as a photographer, as a webmaster, as a network owner, is that i join other sites regularly. I look at what they’re doing, what I like, what i don’t like. I take notes when needed, where needed. make sense? Sort of like if you were running a burger joint and you wanted it to be the best burger place out there, you’d go to other restaurants and eat a lot of burgers, ya know? You’d do your homework.

Sort of like, well, take Wendy’s as an example. Before they opened, you’d best believe those fuckers LIVED at McDonalds, taking notes, learning from them, getting ready to reinvent the burger in their own vision. McDonalds was always the one selling the best. Why? What makes them so special. That sort of thinking is what I’m talking about.

I want Bryci.com to be the best site out there. I want KatieBanks.com to be the best site out there. I want the Bella Network to kick so many asses, when someone thinks quality solo model site, if we’re not the top of the list for them, we’re at least in the running. I don’t think that’s a tall order either… I mean, someone has to be the best, why not us? If we can’t be the best, why not? Who’s the best? How can we break the top 5 at least?

Always strive to be better, and you will be.

Anyway… point to this post…

In the past I have signed up for a lot of sites. I would love to create a review site where I give honest, unbiased reviews of sites, with no referral codes attached to the reviews so when you read site1 has a 5 star rating, you know I don’t gain anything by saying this.

See, that’s one of the issues I have with review sites, they’re all out to make a buck so why would they be dead honest? I mean, if I tell you that site 5 looks great on the outside but sucks donkey nuts on the inside and I give it 1 out of 5 stars, then fuck, who will sign up? The review site makes no sale by referring you because who the fuck is going to sign up for a site that sucks donkey balls? seriously. This is my issue with review websites, it’s hard to know who’s genuine and who’s full of shit.

anywhoooo… once again… digressing…

There are a few sites out there I love. I mean, they get the job done well. I look for inspiration when I sign up for a site. I’m not looking to download boobies because, well, once you’ve worked in this biz for a bit, you get desensitized to boobies.

Some of these sites I sign up for, I get ideas from, be it a photo shoot idea, video idea, way of giving more to the customer idea. I’d love to list these sites that I love but I don’t want to seem biased to them to be honest. I have a lot of friends in the biz, if I list one site but don’t list another, then I might hurt someone’s feelings and well, this industry has drama like a motherfucker. it’s like high school sometimes, so fuck the drama. Easier to not name sites. Can’t piss anyone off that way.

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Quite the wind up to the start of a post hey? I told you it’d be a long post.

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I have signed up for a few sites recently that just make me scratch my head. I look at the sites on the outside, I try and put myself in the shoes of a random guy surfing the web. Yeah, this girl is hot. The site looks decent, the content they elude to has me curious… ok, I’ll sign up.

So I sign up for this one model, she is well known. I go inside her official site, and I am stunned. Blown away really. Was it everything I thought it would be and more? No. It’s so, so much less. The girl is hot, no question, but the content is lacking. Most of the photo sets are webcam snaps. What? Really? Why wasn’t this said on the outside of the site? Am I expecting too much? I mean, if I sign up for a site and pay 25-30 bucks, isn’t it a fair assumption the quality will at least be on par with other sites in this price range?

No, that would be an assumption on my part I guess. We all make em, my bad.

So this site does have some photo shoots that aren’t webcam snaps. Hurray, finally. that’s awesome… wait… I’m looking at some now… wtf… under 10 photos in a set? Are you shitting me? Other sets have 15 photos, one or two sets have more than 25 photos. What the hell, is this a joke? Are you seriously expecting me to rebill for this lack of content? Did you guys even go around and look at what other sites do for their customers? I mean, I understand you just opened a short time ago and because of that it takes time to build up a base… I get it… but holy sheep shit, you’re setting  pattern that you guys think you can put out a set of photos as an update, with under 10 pix and we (the customers) are going to stick around?

Really?

I never stay longer than a month.

This one site I am talking about though… out of 20 or so sets, the entire size of all 20 sets is under 30 megs. Not 30 megs each. Download every image from every set and that folder is under 30 megs in size.

Now, toot my own horn and put this in perspective. Join any of our sites, Bryci, Katie Banks or Ava Dawn  and you will find that each and every set is over 30 megs in size. Not the total amount of sets, I mean, EACH SET. Our images aren’t cam snaps, they’re high quality digital images, 4000 pixels in size.

If you want to be better, you have to put effort into it right? I can’t learn a damn thing from this website. If anything, I just threw away my money in joining. Yes, she is a gorgeous model but no, her website isn’t worth joining. No, I won’t say who I am talking about, sorry. The point of this rant wasn’t to name names, it was to point out that some sites really, really need to pull up their socks.

We get a lot of reader mail telling us that they love our site. We get forum posts in other forums saying things like this: (click pic for larger)

People like what we’re doing. We get feedback on how to be better but usually that feedback involves midgets..er.. small people, clowns, penguins and bowling balls.

We don’t think we’re the best out there by any means, we’re not. Let me say that again so nobody mistakes what I just said. We are not the best solo model site/network online. We are trying to be though, and we keep pushing ourselves to be better, which is what I wish all sites would do. I don’t want to sign up for a site to check their style and be pissed inside 5 minutes. Am I expecting too much? Maybe that’s it. Maybe I expect their site to be what we’re doing inside our sites. Fuck if I know.

I know I am not the best photographer out there, I have lots of room for improvement. Sometimes I am proud of what we accomplish, other times I am pissed that I wasted the model’s time because I was off my game that shoot. We all have off days I guess. We keep pushing forward though right?

What is shitty, is that right now there is a possibility that some people are reading this and thinking I am bad mouthing their site or their model or their webbie or their photographer. What I can tell you, is that the site I am talking about, is NOT a Babe Chat site. I am not friends with the webbie that runs this site I signed up for.

I’m not trying to stir drama in this post either, if I was, I’d have mentioned their site, right?

Ok, time to go work out, the Bowflex calls me.

Have a kick ass weekend everyone!