EDITOR’S LETTER

Spring is upon us and instead of feeling happiness and a new beginning, a lot of Webmasters are feeling the pinch. While America is now at war and tensions have been at an all time high since 9-11 with a code orange “plus” warning level, bad news seems to be hitting all of us from some angle… even the adult Internet isn’t immune.EDITOR’S LETTER

Spring is upon us and instead of feeling happiness and a new beginning, a lot of Webmasters are feeling the pinch. While America is now at war and tensions have been at an all time high since 9-11 with a code orange “plus” warning level, bad news seems to be hitting all of us from some angle… even the adult Internet isn’t immune. This latest news from PayPal is a prime example adding to many people’s woes. After receiving several angry complaints from Webmasters who wanted to share their anger with me about how PayPal was screwing them, I made several attempts to contact a PayPal representative for an interview to allow them to speak up to the adult industry through YNOTNews. None of my emails were answered, and I found their complaint system (or lack of) on the PayPal site to be an exercise in futility. Screw you, PayPal.

It’s hard to say what kind of effect a war will have on adult businesses in general. In fact it is probably a double-edged sword. Consumers may be surfing online porn in droves to seek temporary solace… but maybe not. With gas prices and unemployment skyrocketing and consumer confidence financially and mentally plummeting, perhaps the average surfer out there may be thinking that food and therapy has a priority over an adult site membership. Only time will tell as everything plays out.

A recent poll on our homepage showed that a full 1/3 of Webmasters who responded admitted that the threat of war is affecting their ability to work to at least SOME level. Think about that. It’s disputable as to how many adult Webmasters there actually are worldwide, and it’s tough to estimate what the margin of error with our poll would be, but the bottom line is, it’s safe to say that thousands of people in our industry are suffering a loss of productivity. You don’t need some sort of magical mathematical solution to figure out that translates to every adult company with three or more employees losing at the least a few hours of work a week. Do you work in a company with over 100 employees? The amount of time lost if you think about it can be staggering.

Hope I haven’t ruined your day here! People who know me know that I like to open eyes, speak the truth, present information from different angles, and play devil’s advocate… sometimes just for fun! At any rate, now that we are at war, let us hope for a quick and successful ending, and for all of our troops to make it home safely. Pray, if you are so inclined.

Here at YNOT we have all been buried deep in our work preparing for some major upcoming launches. Being so preoccupied with work has almost made it easier to temporarily block out all the shit happening around us. There is never an excuse for ignorance, but it can be blissful! Anyway, for now… remember this date: Tuesday, March 25. It will be a major day in the history of YNOTMasters. If you aren’t already coming to YNOTMasters every day (why wouldn’t you?) you will definitely want to start then!

In this week’s issue of YNOTNews, I want to thank our friends and regular contributors, attorneys Richard Chapo from AdultInternetLaw.com with another article focusing on law enforcement against online pharmacies, and Larry Walters from FirstAmendment.com answering the question posed in this week’s Ask The Lawyers section. As always this is information that you truly NEED to know.

I also would like to welcome back Cathedra from iWorldFilter.com who supplies us with a great article on foreign traffic this week, and thanks to Derek from ContentGuys.com for giving us a kick-ass interview in this week’s In The Spotlight. There are a lot of Canadians in this business, and so many damn cool ones! Cathedra and Derek are no exception.

Proper introductions are in order here for some pretty amazing people and products brand new to YNOTNews this week. First, I’d like to introduce John from TrueSpectra.com who offers us the first of a two-part article series with an in-depth look into a technology that is sure to blow everyone away and prove invaluable to content providers and adult site owners everywhere. Partnering up with Cool Piranha Content, introducing: TrueSpectra’s Dynamic Image Serving Software. Seeing is believing, so I urge you to check out the demo in this week’s Content Trends section here in YNOTNews. The demo is hosted by Cool Piranha on their new adult hosting (please read about CoolPiranha-Hosting.com in our Press Releases section this week). You WILL want this software. In fact, YNOTMasters has negotiated a special price from TrueSpectra for adult website operators through the end of April 2003. TrueSpectra has agreed to offer its Image Server – Version 4.1 software to adult Webmasters that reference John’s article here in YNOTNews for 50% off… that’s a savings of $5,000!

Also this week I’d like to introduce Dino from Modena-Inc.com with his inaugural YNOTNews article. This is just the beginning of a major experimental project for YNOTNews! We are going to be following Dino and his company for up to a full year and putting together a documentary if you will, on his company’s successes and failures – from start-up on up to the top! So stay tuned as we will be publishing Dino’s “diary” with a new installment almost every week! You can start by reading his “pilot episode” (okay… this isn’t quite reality TV!) in this issue about one of his first major setbacks as an adult Webmaster in his article titled “Turnkey Vendors – Should They Stay Or Should They Go?” Maybe you have had a similar experience in the past? Maybe not? Either way, we are all going to follow closely the brains, personalities and innovations behind Modena-Inc. over the course of the next several months and read about their trials and tribulations. Share in their joy, wallow in their sadness, love to hate them or hate to love them, this will be YNOTNews’ first major stab at “reality Webmastering” since our inception three years ago. That’s right! YNOTNews has been serving the adult Webmaster community and going strong for three full years now!

In closing, if you are attending NYC Expo and plan on attending a seminar or two, please hit me up at editor@ynotnews.com and find out how you can get free advertising to our over 10,000 double-opt-in Webmasters.

Enjoy this issue! – LAJ

Jay “LAJ” Kopita is the Executive Editor for YNOTNews and the Communications Director for YNOTMasters and can be reached at editor@ynotnews.com and jay@ynotmasters.com.