Men4RentNow becomes a pay site effective today...

[Guest roger]

My favorite escort was complaining about an e-mail he just got. x( I told him to look at both sides of the issue... it costs money to make money. I have to say though, $30 a month x 2000 escorts would be a nice chunk of change. What are your thoughts?

 

from Men4RentNow.com

 

"We hope that your listing on Men4RentNow.com has been bringing you lots of

new clients and significantly increasing your business.

 

In order to help cover our operating expenses, WE WILL BEGIN CHARGING AN

ADVERTISING FEE OF $29.95 / MONTH FOR ALL NEW LISTINGS starting on

September 8th, 2003.

 

ALL CURRENT ADVERTISERS WILL RECEIVE A FREE 1 MONTH LISTING ON

MEN4RENTNOW.COM as a special thank you. During this free period, you will

enjoy all the benefits of a premium advertiser. All the premium features

are available on the Your Account page on the site – just login, and check

them out!

 

YOUR FREE LISTING WILL EXPIRE ON OCTOBER 8TH, 2003. After your listing

expires, your ad will remain on the site, however, your contact information

will not be displayed and clients will not be able to email you until you

upgrade your membership. You can upgrade your free listing to a paid

listing on the Your Account page after logging-in to Men4RentNow.com.

 

MONTHLY LISTINGS START AT ONLY $29.95 PER MONTH. Credit card, online check

and money order payment options will be available over our secure server.

Both Basic and Premium listings are available. Premium advertisers get

more exposure on the site, and also get more features than Basic

advertisers – an email detailing the differences will be sent out in the

next several days.

 

AS THE LARGEST AND MOST VISITED ESCORT AND MASSEUR DIRECTORY on the net,

our primary objective is to aggressively promote you and the services that

you provide. We are also focused on continuously improving our service

and making it better for you, our advertiser, and the clients that you

serve. To fully achieve these objectives, it has become necessary for us

to begin charging for listings on the site.

 

IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, please email us at [email protected]

and we will be happy to assist you.

 

WE WILL KEEP YOU UPDATED AS WE APPROACH THE OCTOBER 8TH DATE.

 

As always, thanks for your business, and we look forward to serving you in

the future,

 

 

Your Men4RentNow Team

http://www.men4rentnow.com

 

My next question is: are they gonna charge clients to get access too?

 

Roger

:o

[Ethan_NYC]

I wonder how many escorts will continue to use the site when their free time is up. I'll consider it--I agree it takes money to make money...

As one of the few free sites out there, perhaps a new free escort listing provider will pop up to replace it...

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

Pay For Play

 

There are two basic models for escort web sites:

 

(1) Rent Boy and Meet Local Men type sites where the escorts pay to advertise and, at best, the client only pays to see "XXX" pictures; these sites make their money mainly from escorts;

 

(2)The other model is a site like All American Male, where the escorts list for free and clients have free access, even to contact the escorts, but pay as well to view "XXX" pictures.

 

Some of these sites offer premium placement accounts to the escorts to make money, offering better placement. Male Prime and Working Boys Network sites use this concept. Otherwise, these sites also make money from advertisers and site traffic.

 

Men 4 Rent Now (which is owned by the same people who produce the sex and cruise site Men 4 Sex Now is essentially taking a model used by sex sites for (M4M4Sex, Sex 4 Hot Men, etc.) where they get a number of members to sign up by requiring them to provide content (i.e. photographs) to drive traffic to the web site.

 

If you read the e-mail posted, the site owners are essentially going to keep the content, whether the escort continues to actually benefit or not, and not provide access to the clients to contact the escorts (or access to the clients for the escorts) for these listing.

 

Before the usual suspects chime in and say we (the escorts) should pay to advertise, the fact of the matter is that the escorts have provided a great deal of free content, which has driven the traffic for this site. A year or two ago, no one had ever heard of this site and it has certainly eclipsed a number of other escorts sites that have come and gone in that time frame.

 

The problem I have arrives if Men 4 Rent Now does what they do (and what all the other sex and crusie sites do) on Men 4 Sex Now: keep a multitude of content (i.e. photographs) whether you can actually contact the individual pictured.

 

The cruise sites, the site owners drive paying members to join by imply a large number of members available to cruise when a number of those listings are actually the same thing as disconnected telephone numbers - except that you do not know that you are getting a wrong number. You simply assume the other guy is not interested.

 

In the case of Men 4 Rent Now, the client could simply assume the escort is not responsive or does not want the appointment (or to follow up on the inquiry, as the case may be).

 

This concept might be a valuable advertising source for traveling escorts to run short term advertising, but I seriously doubt the web site owners will permit such use. There is not likely serious money to be made that way. I also think for escorts (and clients) in areas where the local newspapers may not permit escort advertising, it can be a beneficial service, but obviously, these are not large enough markets to make serious money.

 

For escorts in large urban markets, unless the escort really finds it a valuable tool to find clients over the other one available to them, they are likely to lose a lot of guys as paying advertisers. I agree, it does take money to make money, but only an idiot is going to advertise in every possible media. As any other business, escorts will decide to spend their money with a known quantity.

 

If Men 4 Rent actually cut a lot of the dead wood out, and deleted some of the accounts they are presently implying they are going to maintain on the site (this is the same complaint clients have about escort sites which list escorts who are not 'actively in play') and streamlined the site to professionals, small and mid-sized markets, traveling escorts, etc. I could be it would be valuable for the escorts and clients. It needs to remain free to the clients and I seriously doubt that will be the case. They will likely lose many of the escorts, particularly the casual, small, part time guys who make up the bulk of their client base, as well as the foreign guys who simply will not benefit from a North American based site when something like Erados exists for free.

 

This business model was attempted by Sex 4 Hot Men and they have been unable to convince any significant number of escorts to pay for it (and it is, as all the sex sites are, a pay site to truly view anything other than thumbnail content). I expect this is the road they will go down, providing thumb nail shots and possibly profile descriptions for the clients for free, but requiring a "membership" to actually view the full images and to contact the "escort."

 

How many of you clients would pay for that?

[Candyman]

RE: Pay For Play

 

Men4SexNow started charging and look what has happened. In NJ they lost more than 3/4 of the guys posting. I refused to pay when it changed and now with less guys on it doesn't make sense to join. To bad that they ruined a good thing. Looks like they will do it to their other site as well.

 

PS: A big thanks to Hooboy for keeping this site free

[Guest ncm2169]

Too bad. IMHO, they've been the hottest site for the past several months. x(

 

As others have suggested, I predict they'll lose WELL over 50% of their escort listings. And we'll lose contact with a helluva lot of new talent. x( x(

 

Just my $.02 worth. :o

[Rick Munroe]

Open question: if we have to pick one, which pay site (escort pays, not clients) is the best choice?

[FrancoDiSantisxxx]

Every Which Way

 

Rent Boy seems the popular favorite. I just have problems with Terms and Conditions such as Rent Boy can do what they want and become the owner of any material an escort provides them:

 

4. ... (the site can) change or edit any of the material provided by me . . .

 

5. I agree that all materials provided . . . become the property of (the site . . . and the site has) . . . indefinite permission . . . to use as it sees fit. I also irrevocably grant RB permission to treat such materials as if they were in the public domain if RB sees fit . . . .

 

Also, the last clause, number 8, states that Rent Boy can essentially change the terms at will, simply by providing notice to the escort, which can simply be posted on the site.

 

I would not enter into that kind of agreement with my bank or health insurance company, so why would I do so for a web site?

 

The only purpose of ownership and use of photographic images is to create additional web sites and content without having to pay model fees or otherwise compensate the escorts or body workers.

 

Surely, no one would agree that this is appropriate or reasonable for what benefits may arise from advertising on Rent Boy (or any other site, as Big Cock Society also does this, even though they have repeatedly been found to have taken photographs and content from other web sites without the permission of the web site OR the model pictured.

[Nvr2Thick]

RE: Pay For Play

 

>There are two basic models for escort web sites:

>

>(1) Rent Boy and Meet Local Men type sites where the escorts

>pay to advertise and, at best, the client only pays to see

>"XXX" pictures; these sites make their money mainly from

>escorts;

>

>(2)The other model is a site like All American Male, where the

>escorts list for free and clients have free access, even to

>contact the escorts, but pay as well to view "XXX" pictures.

 

Meet Local Men looks like they got their start by looting ads from other sites. They also have a number of "ads" that were taken straight from HooBoy's reviews. They may be charging escorts, but they don't seem to be vigilant when it comes to refreshing content. MLM has had some ads on the site for years for retired, relocated or deceased escorts. I know of two escorts who retired before MLM started, but who somehow got on their site.

 

There are quite a few sites who fit model 2b) -- supposed escort sites that stole all their content from other sites, just so they could charge web lurkers for the "adult" portion.

 

I agree that Men4RentNow's policy of keeping the ad but locking the contact information until the escort pays is fairly odious. They understand that they only need the illusion of a broad advertising base to look legitimate (see also, Big Cock Society). If they're gonna charge for advertising they should be dropping the ad when an escort stops paying to run the ad.

 

As an escort you should request that your ad and all pictures be removed from Men4RentNow if you don't want to pay to be on their site. The website should not be allowed to benefit from your images and bolster their content with fluff.

 

As a client I think the best sites are ones that charge escorts and make the content free, such as Rentboy. If an ad falls off of Rentboy you know that either the guy has retired or stopped paying to advertise. Second best are sites that charge clients for content or contact information, but have some form of follow-up with escorts to cut the dead wood. It's galling to see a site that charges or requires Mancheck to look at naked pictures of guys who haven't escorted in years.

 

As an escort what's the best business model for a site? I would think that sites where advertising is free should be great, but being pushed to page 17 of a site where most of the ads are invalid wouldn't be worthwhile.

[Candyman]

Rick-from a clients point of view. Looking for escorts right now it has to be Rentboy. The only site that seems to stay current and is easy to use.

 

From my point of view-that cute fuzy ass pic will bring them in from everywhere:P

 

Candyman-remember it melts in you mouth not your hand}(

[dick_nyc]

I have been receiving emails from a site I never heard of before called

 

http://GayEscortWeb.com

 

 

 

I know nothing about this site and wonder if anyone else has seen anything about it. Is this a renamed other site or is this a new site entirely? Any ideas??

[Guest ncm2169]

Rick and others, I think it depends on at least a couple things, first, whether the site charges clients to view the listings, and second, where the escort is located.

 

I've never joined a pay-to-view escort listing site and I never will. (If I want XXX pics, I can usually get them from the escort for free, if he has them).

 

In my experience, certain sites have "better shopping" for escorts on both coasts, while other sites have far more escorts listed in other locales. For example, both meetlocalmen and rentboy are utterly useless in the Midwest. Both have few listings and the guys who are listed are often long gone. x(

 

Hope this helps just a little. :o