American Male Escort

[Guest GladImGay]

Would be interested on thoughts about changes to the website. It requires a fee to view all but 1 of the images and no access to telephone numbers. I think the change makes that resource of little value to either the client or escort. It never was a top resource, anyway. At least it was economical to the escort.

[Kevin Slater]

The trouble with a site that charges the client and not the escort is that there is no motivation to keep the listings current. If the advertiser is being charged a monthly fee, he'll be darn sure to pull his ad when he leaves the biz; if not, there's no incentive to go back and pull the ad. Worse yet, the sites often try to keep as many ads up as possible in order to look as if they're giving the viewer a lot of bang for his viewing buck. There's something useful about requiring a guy to pony up a few bucks to make sure he's sincere before publishing his ad for the world to see.

 

Kevin Slater

[Guest GladImGay]

I have decided to not start charging for my services. At the tender age of 77 I don't feel up to starting a new career. I leave that up to those better qualified. So my use of American Male Escort is as a voyeur or a potential client.

[+ deej]

I was surprised to see the changes.

 

AmericanMale.net has always been sorta third-tier as escort sites go. When you own a market, you can get away with this sort of change sometimes (think Apple and the iPpod), but a third-tier player won't be able to pull it off.

 

I'm glad to see someone is paying attention to maintaining the site! But it's also proof positive that they've been actively maintaining the dead ads all this time and now you need to pay to see them.

 

All in all, my impression is this is not a good change.

[Greathands]

Will agree that the changes aren't for the better.

 

The one thing that hasn't changed is that five out of the six guys listed in my hometown haven't escorted in a few years.

 

In fact, one of those listed is a close friend of mine and he is livid that "his" pic is listed. He never authorized his face pic to be online in the first place, as it was supplied by the agency he worked for at the time (who promised never to post his face pic). He has emailed American Male several times asking (and telling) them to remove his pic ... all to no avail.

 

So from my vantage point, this isn't a site I would trust!

[+ ArVaGuy]

I'd say Deej is being kind calling it a third-tier site IMHO.

 

While there are some quality escorts listed there I'd say many of the guys just don't give me the warm fuzzies. In the DC listing for example there are a few guys with multiple listings using different aliases. Not a good sign. It's certainly not a resource I would trust at all.

[Guest ncm2169]

The site does have one feature which provides some help to prospective clients. Toward the upper right hand corner of each escort's listing page there is a notation about when the escort last updated his info. Here's an example:

 

< Last Updated On:

< Sunday, July 08, 2007

< Page Viewed 6970 Times

 

I help an escort manage his listings and I can say with certainty that he receives an "update your profile" notice from AmericanMale frequently (I think it's quarterly), even if it's just to verify the pre-existing info. So, yes, the site doesn't weed out the "dead wood" (is that a pun? }( ), but they do give you some idea of how current the escort's info is.

 

Finally, to those who describe AmericanMale as a "third tier" listing site: if you agree that men4rentnow and rentboy are "first tier", which site(s) do you consider "second tier?" Just curious.

[Kevin Slater]

>to those who describe AmericanMale as a "third tier"

>listing site: if you agree that men4rentnow and rentboy are

>"first tier", which site(s) do you consider "second

>tier?" Just curious.

 

Good question. I would call Rentboy and DaddysReviews first tier, along with some of the sites individual escorts put up.

 

I think Men4RentNow is decidedly second tier. (The search function is awkward, by default you get listings for guys who aren't even in the city you're searching; you can't send the escort a detailed email; the site heavily edits what the escort is allowed to write in his ad and won't let him publish a link to his own site. On the other hand, it is inexplicably the second biggest source of my leads.) Craigslist may also be second tier. (Yes, you get (mostly?) players and unprofessionals, on both sides of the arrangement; and the readers flag escorting ads mercilessly. On the other hand, it is up-to-date and there's always the hope for finding a diamond in the rough.)

 

The third tier is large and not worth enumerating. I also think the gap between each of these tiers is huge.

 

Kevin Slater

[+ deej]

That's pretty much how I'd answer the question, Kevin, but I have a quibble with your answer.

 

The question was about "escort listing sites". Daddysreviews isn't one of those. Escorts cannot place their own listing (without getting sneaky, and risking exposure); their happy (or not) clients submit reviews. So it's a little different.

 

I also agree there is a vast difference between the tiers, and craigslist varies from city to city. Some places it's second tier, some places bottom rung, and some places it's the only game in town.

[+ deej]

Replying to myself seems a little weird, although some do it all the time.

 

Alexa provides some metrics. (I've been disparaging of them in the past, but that was before they were bought by Amazon and got access to a buttload more data.)

 

This is NOT definitive. It proves nothing. But this is what people who monitor internet traffic notice.

 

Here's a traffic graph for the last few months for Rentboy, M4RN, AmericanMale, and MER, four sites that accept escort advertising.

 

Looks to me like there are only two tiers.

 

http://www.dfapam.com/tiers.jpg

[+ Gar1eth]

It seems to me that American Male tried something like this about 3 or 4 years --making the prospective client pay for information. And that was in my opinion when the site went downhill. Before that it seemed to have a lot more ads, and the guys whose ads it had were a lot more appealing to me. Then it tried to become some type of pay site. I think it lasted for several months--then went back to a mostly free site. Once it went back to a free site--and also after it purged all those fake ads from the Cupcake Agency--it's never really recovered either in the amount of ads or in the types of guys I would be interested in.

 

As for other sites-there is of course http://www.studfiles.com. Many of it's listings are out of date--but occasionally I see a new ad there.

 

If you want to talk about a 4th tier then there is also http://www.male4escort.com/--but I think a large proportion of those ads are outdated.

 

Gman

[+ Gar1eth]

It seems to me that American Male tried something like this about 3 or 4 years --making the prospective client pay for information. And that was in my opinion when the site went downhill. Before that it seemed to have a lot more ads, and the guys whose ads it had were a lot more appealing to me. Then it tried to become some type of pay site. I think it lasted for several months--then went back to a mostly free site. Once it went back to a free site--and also after it purged all those fake ads from the Cupcake Agency--it's never really recovered either in the amount of ads or in the types of guys I would be interested in.

 

As for other sites-there is of course http://www.studfiles.com. Many of it's listings are out of date--but occasionally I see a new ad there.

 

If you want to talk about a 4th tier then there is also http://www.male4escort.com/--but I think a large proportion of those ads are outdated.

 

Gman