This week we are proud to have KayS In The Spotlight. She is the owner and operator of Webmaster RoundTable, an affiliate site of Max Cash’s Web Overdrive since October 2002. KayS has an extensive background in computers, the adult Internet, and teaching (and is a gamer!).This week we are proud to have KayS In The Spotlight. She is the owner and operator of Webmaster RoundTable, an affiliate site of Max Cash’s Web Overdrive since October 2002. KayS has an extensive background in computers, the adult Internet, and teaching (and is a gamer!). A lot can be learned here so check out her story…

YNOT: Greetings KayS! Tell us about Webmaster RoundTable.

KayS: Webmaster RoundTable was created to bring a resource/learning center to the professional Webmaster that would suit their needs – Webmasters who have been in the industry a few years, know HTML, traffic, how to market, and know their niches, but still need a place that’s a springboard for ideas, and resources that might cross over into mainstream, or program instruction on heavy duty site building scripts and business issues.

YNOT: Do you specialize in anything?

KayS: We specialize in everything from starting your own paysites to filling out balance sheets, video and streaming media, nuts and bolts of computer hardware, marketing and promotion, tools and tricks, and of course advanced site building and all that goes with it. Everything is written from the adult Webmaster’s point of view. We take mainstream news stories and analyze them from our industry perspective. What impact will this buyout have on adult? What are the ramifications for adult Webmasters if the Patriot Act II is passed? If you’re a professional Webmaster, we have something that will help you run your business more efficiently.

Webmaster RoundTable (WMRT) has taken projects to a new level. I’ve spent years teaching people from all industries and experience levels how to use software and hardware and have always looked for a better way of getting complex or confusing instructions across to the user, painlessly. And with WMRT technology has finally caught up to my vision. Let me explain what I mean.

As Webmasters, we want to spend our time building things that will make money. We have an idea that embedding a short video clip in an FPA could be really effective. So how do we do it? We download a clip, go over to MicroSoft to find out how to embed a WMP file, find out we need a program that will encode the clip in a format different from the one it came in, and our five-minute project has become a time sucker.

Making sense out of techno-babble is difficult at best, impossible at worst. Software program tutorials want you to learn the entire program even if you only need a small part of it and how do you know what you need to learn in that program to accomplish your task?

WMRT has taken a new approach. Things like this are turned into a project, with plain English. “Insert Tab A into Slot B” instruction geared towards the adult Webmaster. But we didn’t stop there. We turn each project into a streaming video that can be used with the text-based tutorial or downloaded and followed later. If a picture is worth 1,000 words then these are priceless. No techno speak, just the parts of the programs you need to learn to accomplish your task, and a video showing exactly how it’s done. I can’t put a live instructor next to you as you work but this is the next best thing.

We don’t have a message board but rather a project board. There are many resource sites complete with message boards and I didn’t think a general message board would be a good fit for WMRT. But, discussions about the projects or suggestions have a public forum ready and waiting.

YNOT: Very interesting. So you pretty much operate for the more established Webmaster…

KayS: Webmaster RoundTable is dedicated to more advanced projects in areas like site building, video and audio, basic business, marketing, and nuts and bolts. I’m looking forward to working with Web Overdrive and doing some streaming tutorials in Tutor Matrix. It would be awesome to work with Tom at Tom’s Newbie Booster (TNB) on some of these. That guy’s mind just never stops! And I think he uses twenty computers to surf the Web coming up with neat ideas and links to software and sites that are springboards for new ways of doing things.

Something I’ve always enjoyed doing is taking a piece of software and doing something with it that even the developers may not have thought of. Sort of a “what if” with software. For example, one of our projects explains how to add a banner rotation program to sites, but then the next project goes into how to use the same program to add a type of POTD to some sites. I’m Scottish – I love recycling things and making them do double duty.

YNOT: Where are you based out of and what’s your background?

KayS: Originally I was from Ohio but after a quick trip to Wyoming I fell in love with the wide-open spaces and laid back lifestyle. I’d spent many years in corporate life and being able to slop around in jeans and a porn convention t-shirt instead of a three-piece business suit is sheer heaven!

There are downsides. Our connectivity here sucks the big purple weenie. But at least I’m VERY aware of how my surfer feels on that 56K connection cause I’m building and loading at 28.8!

The only thing I miss about the east is the easy accessibility to good computer stores. The local Radio Shack outlet just doesn’t cut it when you’re looking for a decent video card, or Vegas Video 3. LOL

But living in the state with the lowest population of any in the U.S. means no traffic jams, no road rage, and compared to a major city, no crime. I mean, I have to laugh when the police blotter is discussing the two pigs that got loose with descriptions that read, “One was big and one was small. One was black and one was white. They were caught in the 800 block of Main Street and returned to the owner who promised to repair the fencing.” I’m much happier reading those police notes than reading the number of homicides and how they compare to last year.

I’ve spent most of my life in computers, getting started before there was even an Apple II! I’ve been factory trained as a computer tech by IBM, Compaq, Apple, HP and others and at one time was proficient in every piece of software available for PCs. Of course that was back when there were only 100 or so programs. LOL

My real love has always been teaching people how to get useful work from their computers. As I conducted corporate seminars and wrote software tutorials I found that teaching was actually being an interpreter. Programmers and techie-types speak their own language, but that isn’t usually the same language as the end user! Standing in between the software developer and say the bookkeeper was just taking what the developer wrote and putting it into terms the bookkeeper understood.

As I worked on the development of Tutor Matrix with Web Overdrive I was frustrated by the lack of good technology that would bring the information to life for the Webmaster. I KNEW what I wanted to do, but the software and systems that were available then were cost prohibitive. Doing these streaming media project tutorials brings together just about everything I enjoy doing in business – adult sites, teaching, past business experience and solid technology.

YNOT: What do you say to the old adage, “those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach?”

KayS: I couldn’t disagree with that more. If I haven’t done something I present in a tutorial I sure can’t teach it to someone else! If I haven’t built the page or used the software or filled out that balance sheet, or made that banner I can’t explain how to do it to someone else. When I ran a software development company and we worked on the end user interfaces, the programmers got tired of hearing me say, “I want it easy enough to use that we could put a trained chimpanzee on this thing and they could turn out useful work in an hour.” Writing manuals and tutorials and user interfaces that are intuitive, easy to use, and clear to the user is a challenge and much more difficult than just making something that works.

I get bored REALLY fast with repetitive things. I’d make a really awful factory worker so computers and the Internet were custom made for me. There’s always something new, something different and some place to move on to when you’ve learned the first part.

YNOT: It’s obvious that you really enjoy what you do! Do you do anything else for fun?

KayS: I am a pretty good gamer. I’m hell on wheels as a sniper in Half Life, my assassin kicks serious butt in BattleNet Diablo II, I was nationally ranked in the top ten for Pimp Wars, and recently became a beta tester for the WarCraft expansion. That’s my dark secret life. A grandmother is NOT supposed to beat the pants off the “l33t”. LOL

YNOT: That’s too funny. I’m impressed! Anything else outside of computers?

KayS: Handling horses is a passion I get to engage in daily. We have ten, that came with all sorts of personalities and their own sets of problems. Some had been abused, some were coddled from champion stock, some were trail “hacks” and we even have one born to us. There’s something about standing in the wide-open prairie with the mountains on the horizon and watching these guys run and play and just plain feeling good and having their brand of fun. That kinda blows the cobwebs out of the brain and puts things into perspective.

YNOT: How did you end up in the adult Internet?

KayS: I started a mainstream community site a number of years ago. It was wildly popular but I knew NOTHING about making money with it. Oh I had banners and text links for products and sponsors, but not much else. I started looking around for something online that I could learn from and went for the adult industry because they KNEW how to make money on the ‘Net and they were using cutting edge technology to do useful work. I discovered YNOT and DoKK and lurked for months reading and learning.

I started charging a membership fee for premium services and at the same time started building adult sites to get a better idea of how it all tied together and for an additional income. Personal issues brought me to a point where I rethought my direction and just no longer had the heart or the fire to keep the community site going. So I closed it and went into adult full time. By then Web Overdrive and TNB had opened and I came out of the woodwork and stopped lurking.

Probably the biggest reason I chose to go with adult were the people who I “spoke with” everyday. They were open, shared thoughts, ideas and knowledge and were by and large a warm and caring community – the Internet at its finest.

YNOT: What do your friends and family think?

KayS: Well as time has gone by I’ve noticed I don’t really have many friends outside of the industry. Somehow they just don’t “get it” and when I look at a commercial during the Super Bowl trying to figure out how to use it to convert porn surfers while they’re using that time to run for more chips and dip, the common ground seems to get a little out of sync.

My kids all know and as far as I know don’t have a problem with it. One of them works in the industry, a couple others are considering doing some shoots for content. I don’t flaunt it in their faces, and I’m still the same person / mother / grandmother I always was. What I do for a living will never change that.

Everyone else pretty much knows but it’s a “don’t ask, don’t tell” situation. If they can’t handle it I won’t embarrass them by making it an issue, but I am not ashamed at all about what I do and my profession is a part of who I am. Accept it or don’t. Either way it’s not my problem.

YNOT: Who were the most helpful in getting you to where you are today?

KayS: There isn’t enough room to list everyone by name. My first true landing spot was YNOT and the people who posted there were especially helpful in getting me into the industry. Then there was DoKK, Snoops, Tweet, Tom, Web Overdrive, my first official tutor Big Bear, ALL my “tutees” with Tutor Matrix, GiGi, the people at Max Cash and Cash Quest and InSite. The list is endless.

YNOT: Any comments about the industry, good or bad in general?

KayS: There are three things that are disturbing me. The first is the lack of acceptance that this is a WORLD wide web. This isn’t an American playground where the U.S. can set the rules. In fact the U.S. is lagging behind parts of the world in both technology and connectivity. We need to work together with other countries to police the ‘Net and garner sales from other countries. The government needs to get a clue about what the Internet is really all about and stop trying to pass knee-jerk reaction type bills.

On the same note I’m very concerned about some of the legislation I’ve been seeing. It almost looks as if they can’t get pornmeisters on the weak and confusing “obscenity” issues so they are proposing broad power bills that can be used against us even if they are purportedly written to “stamp out terrorism”. Sort of coming at us through the back door.

The third is the increase in patent lawsuits that cover Web issues. We’re all aware of the Acacia suit that says it owns the rights to the “method” we use to send video, sound or even pics to a surfer via download and streaming. But there are even method patent suits that cover tabs used for site navigation! And basic HTML and java procedures we all use on our sites! This is insanity! And if allowed to continue this could bankrupt the small site owner as they have to either pay licensing fees or go to court.

YNOT: Any ideas on how to make our industry a better place?

KayS: I’d love to see the industry become more professional. It has grown up a lot since I came into it, but still has a long way to go. When the cost of entry is so low, there will always be the “hobbyist” or barely legal teen who sees nothing wrong with “borrowing” content, using the hardest of hardcore on an unprotected page, using deceptive sales and billing practices, and promoting illegal material.

Someday I’d like to see a licensing board that works. If you have a porn site and violate certain standards, your license is yanked. Too many violations and your sites are shut down. That would border on a perfect world and I doubt it would ever happen but if we don’t clean up our industry it will be cleaned up for us. And the people doing that cleaning won’t have our experience or our best interests at heart!

ASACP has gone a long way in helping some situations and has even gotten some well-deserved accolades from the mainstream for their efforts. But there are other areas that need to be tackled for the health of this industry.

YNOT: Any thoughts about what to expect in the future of the adult Internet?

KayS: I see mainstream and adult marketing coming closer together as the industry matures. Mainstream has learned from adult, and I’ve learned some neat methods from mainstream and I see this trend continuing. I see more mergers and joint projects on all levels as we fight for surfer dollars. I see non-U.S. countries opening up and developing into major markets. And I see broadband and wireless deployment playing a major role in how we deliver our message to the surfer.

YNOT: Any upcoming launches we should look out for?

KayS: Well there’s a couple of things in the works, but you know what they say about secret projects… if I tell ya I’d have to kill ya and I don’t like bloodshed so I’ll just keep quiet for now. But watch Web Overdrive and TNB for sneak peeks!

YNOT: Haha will do! OK… thanks for being our guest this week, Kay!

KayS: I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the stuff that keeps me hopping out of bed every morning and whistling through my day!

YNOT: Everyone be sure to check out Webmaster RoundTable!

Do you know a Webmaster with a great story to tell? Someone innovative, unique or perhaps even entertaining? Tell us about this person for future consideration to be “In The Spotlight” here at YNOTNews!