OFFICIAL
77.0
pretty good |
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Content
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| Quality : |
16.0 / 20 |
| Quantity : |
13.5 / 15 |
| Entertain : |
12.0 / 15 |
| Updates : |
8.5 / 10 |
| Exclusive : |
3.5 / 05 |
| Download : |
2.5 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
56.0 / 70 |
| Navigation |
| Easy : |
8.5 / 10 |
| Features : |
3.0 / 05 |
| Design : |
3.0 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
14.5 / 20 |
| Other |
| Originality : |
3.5 / 05 |
| Hard Facts : |
3.0 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
6.5 / 10 |
Scoring Criteria New
New Update!
As of Aug 15th, 07, price of a site is no longer factored into the overall score/rank. |
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1. Easy to get around between the sites.
2. A few good sites to check out.
1. Those sites also never update.
2. Some sites are VERY small.
3. Content varies a bit.
"The few decent sites are good, but the others just drag this network down." |
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With networks becoming more and more popular these days, it's about time we see some crop up in a niche other than reality sites. Our first look at an amateur network was the Wild Rose Network, which fared pretty well. Today's site, called VIP Members, is a little different I think in that the sites involved are all run by the same company (whereas Wild Rose had sites run by individuals, almost like an AVS). We've actually reviewed some of their larger sites already: Cute Latina, Tiffany Lee Fisher, and Leroy the Cyberpimp.
The site is a pretty good deal at $19 a month, and I'm pretty sure you can join through any of the participating sites as well at the same price. Looking through the list of sites they have, I can tell you off the bat that some are true amateurs, and others are just content sites. Some of these content sites pretend to be actual amateur models, while others have just generic mixed content available. I guess buyer beware in case you were hoping to see some of these girls in cam shows and stuff.
Once you're in the member's area, each site opens without having to re-enter your login information which is nice. They'll usually give you a thumb preview, the title, and a description of the site before you go there. Each site has a different look and feel to it. It turns out I was a bit wrong earlier; at least some of the sites here were built by other people. What's on the sites are very hit or miss as some are regular amateur sites, and some are just awful paysites.
I saw a couple sites that only had five photo sets available, which is pretty pathetic. These seem to be the content girls for the most part, but even with that I'd expect to see more content available. On sites like Elizbeth's, I found several 404 links which was annoying. Plus, even though these small sites have links to "web cams," you won't find them on there obviously. Pictures vary a ton, but are all pretty amateur in nature. If I had to guess on an average size, it'd be around 800x600 or just a bit smaller. Along the same lines, I saw a few sites (Suzay and Elizbeth were the first two I noticed) whose title didn't even match the site you were on for some reason. Small things like these add up to make the site feel unprofessional overall.
A lot of the sites don't have any video. The ones that do again vary a ton, since there's a few people making them. The quality varies, but is generally just ok, in the amateur niche much like the photos are. I saw Windows Media, Real Videos, MPGs, and DivX depending on the site.
You also get access to three big cam networks, which should keep your in-between times pretty busy. They have a network-wide updates page, which is great, but even with all the sites it seems the best they can do is about one update a day on average (doubling up on some, and skipping a few here and there). If they only had seven sites, perhaps once-daily updates would be fine, but they have more than double that number of sites. I guess it all comes back to those sites in the network that will never update, and drag the whole thing down. Sure there's a few decent sites here, but as a whole it's a bit disappointing. Hopefully the sites you like here end up being the good ones!
| 1st Follow-Up Review |
Review: 04-03-06 |
Well, not a ton different around here I see. They've bumped up their price to $25 a month instead of $20, and that'll hurt their score a bit right off the bat. There's a new site as well, but mostly business as usual with a huge site all around Talia, and a lot of filler stuff. It's still decent but not fantastic, as I'd look for more consistency across the sites to make the network as a whole better as well.
Score decreased from 78.3 to 77.0.
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