SCOTTSDALE, AZ – Steve Lightspeed knows a few things about a few things. Solo girl sites and peer support are two of them – and his newest project SoloGirlBoard.com combines them beautifully.“I know people are going to say, ‘Oh, shit. Just what we need, another message board,’ but a message board with a purpose is a good thing,” Lightspeed says pragmatically.
Regardless of what “most” people might say, the board, which launched less than a week ago, already has 100 registered users and more than 400 posts. “It took off like wild fire,” Lightspeed observes in amazement. “I can’t believe it.”
With new solo girl sites popping up daily, Lightspeed and friends felt the time was right to stop ICQing their friendly advice and insights back and forth. It was time to post them on a peer-to-peer focused bulletin board where all webmasters interested in solo girl sites could share their experiences and information, thus helping strengthen the niche, as well as the industry as a whole.
“We’re trying to help people avoid mistakes,” Lightspeed explains. Among current discussion threads on the Solo Girl Board are webmaster horror stories about difficult models or photo shoot disasters, cross sell and tour option strategies, and the various pros and cons of different payment methods for models. According to Lightspeed, models have their own horror stories – including webmasters and photographers who plaster photos in all manner of places accompanied by the model’s legal name – so the board has the potential to help raise awareness of appropriate business practices while providing professional support and affirmation to those Web professionals already engaging in ethical behavior.
Lightspeed acknowledges that there are a lot of adult boards available now, but feels that the precise focus of Solo Girl Board makes it unique. “The Solo Girl Board is just a niche board and I’m going to try to keep it really on focus,” he says emphatically. “I don’t want it to be all things to all people. We’re not talking about reality sites. We’re not talking about all that other stuff. We’re just talking about solo girls.”
Because the solo girl niche is made up of so many webmasters who have ongoing friendships with one another, Lightspeed sees the board as having special value since it underscores what he sees as an important point for adult online professionals to keep in mind: helping one another succeed is not the same thing as running yourself out of business. In addition to what he calls “friendly agreements” to not mess with one another’s models, to support one another’s websites, and to keep traffic flowing, he feels there’s enough diversity in the market to make mutual support not only economically safe but better for the industry overall. “It’s like going into a strip club,” he illustrates via example. “There’s 30 hot girls, but maybe there’s one or two that you like the best – and they’re not necessarily going to be the same two that your friend likes. So why don’t we all help each other out and sort everybody out so that the guys can find the girls that they like the best?”
Lightspeed is confident that Solo Girl Board has the potential to make a major, positive impact by providing a central clearing house for discussions of sensitive topics including how to handle webmasters of unwanted “lolita” sites that link to a solo girl website or sign up for a solo girl site’s affiliate program. In his opinion, having a venue for webmasters to determine a unified response to this and other topics is essential to the continued success and survival of the industry.
