Webmaster's Corner

Interview with Porn Meister

DFN: This week's interview is with Porn Meister.

Lets get the real basic stuff first...
Porn Meister My name is Porn Meister, I'm 37 1/2, and I live in New York.

DFN: Why did you pick the nick, Porn Meister?
Porn Meister While my nick may seem obvious, there actually is a story behind it. One day I had been playing the M.A.M.E. version of Pac Man, then later decided to join with an online game system. I needed to pick a screen name and with pac man characters fresh in my mind, I decided to base my name around that. I tried all the standards but they were taken, all except for Blinky. That later evolved into the name Blinker Man, and eventually Blink Meister. When I met LadyB and decided to become an adult webmaster, I brilliantly chose Porn Meister for my nick. Cuz I'm sharp as a tack. (lol) Hey, I said there was a story behind it, I didn't say it was interesting or exciting...

DFN: How often do you try new building ideas, or using new sponsors?
Porn Meister I like to pretend that I try new ideas or sponsors every day. The reality of it is that I find myself mulling over interesting linking ideas all of the time. Usually they are very large ideas requiring hundreds of pages. I've built a few of them over the many months. As for sponsors, I just joined another large one yesterday, and have been downloading banners and such all day today.

DFN: And how often do you build new sites?
Porn Meister I like to pretend that I.... ok enough pretending. When I have a set of content I'll fire off a free site and some galleries for applicable sponsors. I'm beginning to break into AVS sites as well, so lately I'll fire off a 30 picture AVS regular site with mirrors, 20 picture free site with mirrors, 2 15 picture TGP galleries with many mirrors. Shortly I'll tailor things and build 6 TGP 2 galleries in the same batch.

DFN: We know you are always busy... about how many hours a week are you able to put into your business?
Porn Meister Every hour that I'm not sleeping or answering mother nature, I'm in front of the computer doing something related to the business. It's hard to put a real hourly total on it, but lets say 112. And boy does my eyestrain prove it!

DFN: Do you do everything by hand? or do you use some scripts to automate your work?
Porn Meister Well, I suppose I could almost say, "Yes, I do everything by hand", but not quite. I had learned to write programs in BASIC and Pascal back in the 80's. Programming languages and syntax and data types are always very similar, so when I got a look at some Perl code, I knew I would spend a lot of time writing Perl.

That's the case now. I've written a collection of functions to help me build. As it stands now, all I need to do is upload a set of pictures with thumbnails, choose a sponsor to promote, and press some buttons. Out come all those pages I mentioned earlier based on hand made templates. I've also put together some pages that make use of my old TGP galleries by linking them to several personal TGP lists. I recip to them on my galleries, and feed toplist and other hub pages from them.

DFN: Do you have any tips for us on how you stay focused and organized working for yourself?
Porn Meister Focused? Organized? I've heard those words before, but I don't know how they apply to me. I can repeat some advice I've heard before. Set goals, have a plan of action, remember you are at *work* even if you're in your underwear. Be accountable for your workload.

DFN: Can you touch on how and why you got involved into this industry, and how long you have been doing it?
Porn Meister Well, I met LadyB in an online card game and we struck up a conversation and hit it off quite well. When it came time to answer the "what do you do for a living?" question, she told me she was an adult webmaster... which intrigued me to no end I must say! lol ;) I expressed my interest in doing it too, and she graciously sent me some url's and some bookmarks that I still have to this day. She also sent me to Voltar's board and prodded me until I posted and said hello. That all began in September of 2000.

DFN: Can you give a brief background on your history in this business, and where do you see yourself in one year and several years from now?
Porn Meister In the short time I've been in the business, I've worked on building my own pages primarily. I did some work for All of 'Em for a few months as well. I've also done the script work for Sinful Porn Links.

One year from now, I see myself branching out into every nook and cranny I can find in this business. I have a plan for a mainstream sales site as well, which could be applied to various products.

Several years from now, I hope to still be self-employed, unless a sponsor wishes to pay me a very very large salary. I can envision either, but the focus is on self-sufficiency while still being able to live a comfortable life.

DFN: What area in terms of site building do you specialize in, if any?
Porn Meister I'm not specializing in any of the above exclusively, but using them all as much as possible.

DFN: What do you consider to be your strengths in this business?
Porn Meister Honesty and integrity. Also, being able to get along with damn near everyone that I've ever met. Serge once advised me to "find my niche". Is this the same advice in the form of a question?

DFN: What do you consider your 3 best niches?
Porn Meister Well, that's not an easy one for me to answer. I guess if I had to answer, I would say amateur, ebony and mature. But that's largely due to promoting them more than other niches. Promoting them more is largely due to having content available, lol.

DFN: What is the best advice you were given when you were first getting started in this industry and what advice could you give a newbie just starting out these days?
Porn Meister The best advice that I was given was probably just the "set it and forget it". Build, submit, forget, that type of thing. So, I'll pass it along to any newbies. You could spend your time planning things and searching for the magic bullet 'til the cows come home. But you'll only make sales and get traffic if you build pages and if people come to your pages. So just do it!

DFN: What do you think is the worst thing going on with future of our industry right now? ...and what is the best?
Porn Meister Honestly I can't claim to be the visionary that this question requires, so I'll try to give you a pet peeve or two, lol. The worst thing would have to be the stirrings and rumors of action using long untested precedents. It's as if people don't have a will of their own to turn the box off, or simply NOT request a webpage, therefore we should legislate every conceivable tangent. I don't understand the mentality that takes things so far from today's reality as it pertains to adult entertainment.

The best thing is continued interaction between webmasters of all sizes, growing their businesses through cooperation and mutual respect.

DFN: Do you have any additional insight you would like to share about being an adult webmaster?
Porn Meister Being an adult webmaster is cutting edge stuff. It's still a "new" industry, no matter what people may say. The internet is an ever-changing work environment, but that keeps things exciting.

DFN: And finally... do you have a URL you want to plug?
Porn Meister Sinful Porn Links