For years I had used PHPAds/OpenX as my advertiser rotation platform. It did the trick but was overly complicated and a major resource hog. Sometimes on the higher traffic sites it would slow everything down waiting to load which was a major pisser to myself, and to members. I had asked around on some adult WM boards and found others had the same experiences. Some went custom, some still used a version of OpenX, some made modifications.

Yesterday I switched to Smart Spots.  This was some script I had never heard of to be honest until a helper recommended them. I checked it out, and thought it may be overly simplistic for my needs but for $50.00 would give it a whirl.

It was easy to install. I had it up and running literally in minutes. It was a vast departure from OpenX to be sure. The back end was not all nice and pretty like OpenX if that matters. But it also was not insanely complicated either. After a quick skim of their help guide I knew what to do, and within 5 minutes I was cutting and pasting the code into my websites.

I like selling ad spots on my sites. Even if for a few bucks here and there $25-100.00. a month. It’s easily money and I do not have to do anything. You just have to remember to do it while building your sites up over time. As it is a major pain in the ass to go through a 50+ site network to swap out ad code!

One thing I did not like about Smart Spots was having to duplicate banners over and over for campaigns. The admin recommends you set up your ad spots by domain. So in my example, I would have had 50+ domains in there. Wrong. I do mine by grouping. So for one niche, all of those sites have the same code. Second group or niche, same code. This bunches like sites and traffic together for ease of reporting. Which is what I prefer. However, it also keeps banner duplication to a dull roar.

All in all it is a good script IMHO. It is very simple to get up and running, as well as get your ads in place and posted on your site(s) in minutes. It is a very stripped down compared to others, but most do not need anything fancy. I recommend it, and will add it to my list of preferred scripts on www.vicevalley.com.

If you are looking to keep up on what is going on in the adult industry, you really need to read XBIZ.

While there are other industry trades out there, XBIZ by far is the best of them. You can get an online version of the magazine, or a hard copy. Myself, I prefer to have a hard copy mailed to me every month. But if you enjoy RSS, or online versions they have those as well. You can sign up at their main site.

http://www.xbiz.com/

The magazine does come wrapped in blue plastic so that you do not have to worry about your mailman or neighbors seeing somene’s salad being tossed on the cover. I would recommend you have a P.O. Box or MailBox Etc. place to send it to however. There is not charge for the publication (at this time).

This has some very nice premium magazine themes for higher end blogs.

http://wphacks.com/best-magazine-style-wordpress-themes/