One of the important things when it comes to doing reviews is to be as honest and sensere as possable. This is my intent on every single review I do. The problem arrises when a website being reviewed is less then honest, or perhaps a better way of saying it, when a website is shady about their practices. I didn't expect this to happen quiet as early in my reviews as it has, but none the less my job is to report the facts, and this is exactly what I intend to do.
The review in question is that of
adult blog hub Originally I gave this website a great review. I unfortunately was quick to find that what I thought was great, was in fact nothing but a sham. Well I shouldn't say sham exactly, as this website does do its job if you get accepted. I suppose I should explain my story, then my findings, and let you decide for yourself.
Originally when I signed up for this website, I thought it was wonderful. Instantainiously my website and newest article was published on their website. So I submitted a few more websites and suddenly, all my websites had vanished from the list. What was even worse, my account was suspended. I assumed I had violated some terms of service, as the websites I posted had some very hardcore S&M pictures on them. So I emailed the admin to see what the problem was. The reply was as follows:
Thank you for adding your blog at Adult Blog Hub. We believe in being inclusive and accepting of all forms of sexuality. We have members whose blogs reflect this. However one of your blogs depicts acts of violence, while although apparently simulated, we feel meant your listing on our site was inappropriate (http://........).
Your account was therefore suspended. If you wish to re-register, either with different sites or with different content then please do so, however please read our terms and conditions, particularly section 17, first ( at http://adultbloghub.com/abhtos.php)
So it seems my content was not allowed. No big deal. they would let me sign up with a new account so long as the content was more to the liking of the TOS (which incodently I didn't break). No big deal. So I submit this review site and published a review of their program directly on their website. All seemed to go okay. Then I tried re-adding the other websites. To my dismay, my sites had temporarily suspended. So what they told me in the first email wasn't correct, I couldn't add the same websites with new content.
Okay so no big deal, my review site had nothing questionable on it. I posted a review of the next program on my list, that of sugasm. Within 1 min of my posting a review of sugasm, my post was removed yet again!! Apparently they would allow a review of their own program, but not any others. So logically I am getting testy about things now. I email them again, this time I get an entirely different reply:
Your recent posting on ABH has raised a few questions here about what we should and should not allow to be recorded on the site. Originally it was envisioned that the site would be purely for amateur bloggers. However we do not wish to exclude quality resources from our site that might be of mutual benefit to yourself, the amateur bloggers and us.
As you'll appreciate the composition of our ToS has to be careful to allow us to remain a useful resource without allowing sites which would compromise our primary purpose to register. At the moment we do not intend to permanently disallow your sites, but we do need time to consider your content, and that of others, to allow us to amend the ToS and decide if we should incorporate your content in a new section of the site. I'm sure you'll understand this and we would be grateful if you can desist from recording on us for a couple of days while we do this. The need for his review period is why your site is temporarily suspended.
Thank you for the favourable review, but as you'll appreciate that will not influence any policy changes we may or may not make. If you feel a need to change your review then please do so that is your choice, but also remember that we are responsive to the requirements of all our members and no one member can take precendence over the others.
Well at this point I am seriously annoyed with this website. So I decide to ask around in the community. Now for those who are totally new to my websites, let me tell you I have infinate ammounts of contacts in the adult communities. I have friends who run amature bdsm blogs, amature lesbian blogs, professional porn sites, adult sex toy stores, personal ad sites, and much more. The point is, I have professional contacts accross the adult internet community.
One such contact who wishes to remain nameless, told me a bit about this "adult blog hub" program. It seems that this program is nothing but a copycat of other programs on the internet. Now granted I have no problems with someone taking another idea on the internet and recreating it for their own benefits. The problem arrises when every single change the original website makes the copycat website also makes. The is the internet for crying out loud, improve on others ideas don't steal them verbatem.
The conversation I had with my contact went something as follows (my own words used):
Dark Scribe (the administrator of Adult blog hub) seems have taken the idea of blogstormz, expanded upon it and sent out a lot of spam to advertise. Now, I have read your philosophies on the Internet before, and I agree that this is
fair game (with the exception of spamming) and something he is within his rights to do. However, whenever blogstormz comes up with a new idea, for example doing themed lists, it gets incorporated into the adult blog hub site straight away. This really ticks me and others who use both services off. If and when we mention any of this to him, he becomes rather offended and attacks either the blogstormz website or the blogs of the blogstorm administrators.
I was told by another anonymous person that initially they (adult blog hub) had there own way of doing things, but since then they have incorporated new and interesting features from other sites (such as blogstormz), and don't seem to be doing any innovating any more.
So my final review of this website is not going to be good. For starters there is the issue of spam, a big no no. Then there; is the fact this is nothing but a copycat website right down to the finest detail. On top of all this is my horifying experience and repeated changing of reasons on my account being suspended. The fact of the matter is, this website works for some, but I was not one of the lucky ones. If you wish to take your chances, be my guest; however as far as a review goes, its just to damn time consuming and stressful to deal with.
rating: risky
