MsKitka.com

If iTunes prefers that you only register with them once you have three complete episodes, how did French Maid TV go from zero to hero with just one episode in just one month?

French Maid TV posted their first episode in mid-December and a month later I started to wonder whether they would ever post a follow up. They finally posted their second episode earlier this month with a whole new cast of french maids and are currently holding their place as one of iTunes’ top podcasts (today’s rank: 13). In fact, although they only had one episode in January, they still outranked videoblogging pioneers Rocketboom (today’s rank: 23).

But that’s not all…

Even with one episode by January, French Maid TV were already in talks with Podtrac to support advertising in their videoblog and they had already started an AdBrite account to get extra money by selling advertizing space on their official site. Additionally, within two weeks of posting their first episode, they already had a French Maid TV store set up on Cafe Press.

These tactics are all standard marketing strategies for a podcast that wants to monetize their product (hell, I’ve tried two out of three of them!), but I’m wondering when they’ll post their NEXT episode. Will it be something they do every 6 weeks or will they start making them more regularly?

I understand the desire to make some money from podcasting (especially when it takes a lot of time and money to produce), but I don’t think I would be worrying about monetization if I only put out one Kitkast every 6 weeks. Frankly, I’m surprised that an advertizing company like Podtrac would want to do business with someone who’s only made one podcast… I know if I were an advertizing company, I would be concerned whether my client would produce the show regularly enough to give me a stable platform.

So, are advertizers interested in the one-shot long-shot deals or do they want a reliable client to guarantee that their ad will be viewed by as many people as the last time? How many TV shows do you know that are only released once every 6 weeks? Gees, if Kitkast was released once every 6 weeks, it would be 60 minutes long! Instead, these people are putting out a 3-minute show…

The future of advertizing on videoblogs is a truly interesting topic, indeed. I wonder what the CPMs for an erratically-produced show like French Maid TV will be compared to a trustworthy daily show like Rocketboom. Is French Maid TV just a short-term project to make a quick buck?

[On a side note: A German viewer sent me an e-mail today informing me that Kitkast is #30 in the top 100 podcasts on iTunes in Germany. Stand aside, Hasselhoff, Kitka’s here!]

Related: French Maid TV reviewed on Kitkast Episode #1.13

I have the honour to announce that Kitkast has officially branched off as its own independent site. This means the URL is now only Kitkast.com (not a category of MsKitka.com), so please update the link on your site(s) accordingly.

Please visit the Kitkast web site every Saturday after 12pm EST, or subscribe to the RSS feeds, for new episodes of the weekly sex news show.

You stay horny, San Fernando!

Sam Sugar is a genius. Why? Because unlike the general population, he understands the importance of networking on the web. He started SugarBank in May 2005 and soon moved on to start three other sites in just a few short months; Podnography, PSP Porn and SugarHive. Although these three sites have not been especially active in the past few months, Sugar has been able to generate buzz about his sites (and himself) and is now a well-known and trusted porn industry blogger (Internext panel member and Fleshbot guest writer are two sexy credentials he has recently added to his CV).

Yesterday Sugar announced the death of SugarHive, the sex wiki he created last year with the help of his readers. Though this is a sad end to something so creative, it is not something that will diminish Sugar’s reputation. In fact, these days there’s absolutely no way to slow down the marketing madman…

It seems the multi-sited mogul’s next move is to launch SexNotWork, the very first sex blog network. Although a clever pun, the site does not carry the Sugar name since he is working in conjunction with 9rules. Still, the site is well tied into the Sugar name through Sugar’s blog entries at SugarBank and there is no doubt that his broad audience will follow him into his new venture.

But… just when you thought that Sugar was too busy to work on anything else, he has pushed out a whole new series of Sugar-brand blogs:

• SugarPit - The gay equivalent to SugarBank
• Sugasm - The official web site of the highly successful sex blog link network
• SugarJoy - A blog with articles about sex in gaming

Instead of writing for all of these sites, Sugar has other people doing it for him… and the more he gets the Sugar-brand out there, the more traffic and fame he will get.

In addition to all this, Sugar is also planning an AV version of the Sugasm where people submit short videos to him by Gmail and he compiles them into a sexy video-podcast. Sugar has asked me to submit something and although I have an ingenius idea, I’m not sure how much time I have to devote to it.

One thing is for sure, though, whether or not I’m involved I wish him the best of luck (and I urge him to send me an invite to the Playboy Mansion after he purchases it with the wads of cash he’ll be making when he succeeds in monetizing these great plans of his!).

Well, the auction for ad time on Rocketboom has officially closed at $40,000. This translates to CPMs of about $40, which is higher than many videobloggers were expecting but slightly lower than what Rocketboom themselves were expecting ($50-150).

In an interview on the Business Week podcast yesterday, Andrew Baron of Rocketboom said:

“From everything we’ve been hearing from all different kinds of authorities on the matter, it’s basically a high CPM. Much higher than a popular show on television because of all the additional benefits that the advertiser gets through having commercials online such as the site can be interactive, they continue to exist after they’ve been played, they’re archiveable and searchable…”

Baron gives a few other reasons for the high CPMs as well, stating that the audience is targeted, trackable and international.

Well, all I can say is congratulations to Rocketboom for the success of their auction!

Well, the fury over Muhammed cartoons is not the only thing causing protests in Indonesia this week… Many Indonesians are also protesting against a new local Indonesian version of Playboy that has yet to be published.

The irony of these demonstrations is that Indonesia is already flooded with pornography and it is easy to find much more hardcore material than Playboy being sold by street vendors. Additionally, why would anyone purchase an expensive magazine like Playboy when they can already get cheap material? The Jakarta Post published an article a couple of weeks ago highlighting this point:

This trashy soft-core porn won’t take the bulge out of your wallet, prices are as cheap as Rp 1,000 (around 10 US cents) a poster, while the DVDs, newspapers and magazines sell for a little more.

Besides cheap adult magazines, black market videos and DVDS, Indonesians may also access pornography via the Internet. As a way to prevent this from continuing, the government of Indonesia is planning to join the war on porn drafting an anti-pornography bill that would outlaw all pornography and more.

“The people behind this are using religious values to make their argument, especially Muslim groups. It is not stated in the bill, but the standard being used is the standard of Sharia law.

“They say people are not dressing in line with Indonesian culture. But the fashion in Indonesia now is to wear trousers that are tight around the hips, and even traditional clothes are often designed to show off a woman’s breasts,” she said. [More]

In addition to women’s rights, the bill also poses a threat to cinema. The draft bill proposes to make filming erotic dancing and kissing on the lips illegal. Well, defining ‘erotic dancing’ is something very difficult to do (since some people believe that Irish dancing is erotic) and if they outlaw kissing on the lips on film, then I guess old Hollywood classics like Casablanca will also be outlawed.

Although the bill is still just a draft, the parliament is almost certain that it will pass by the middle of this year. Taking this all into consideration, why would Playboy bother trying to launch a local version of their magazine in this heavy conservative-run Muslim state? Do they want to promote freedom and democracy or do they want media attention?