I'm not a fan of the payout rate on MV, but you have one of the best paid porn sites out there. Unfortunately adding new features before they are properly tested is pushing away customers and quite honestly making it super frustrating for content producers. I am sure there are plenty of models who would be happy to volunteer as part of a beta group. I'd love to volunteer! Let's make this site as awesome as it can be with consultation between all parties, instead of pulling apart a great site by rushing to release untested features. (PS. please bring back the ability to rearrange videos!)

I see a some problems with this. Mainley, because of the way ManyVids is structured, you would be giving a specific group of models the ability to sell products that other models can't. The reason this is a problem: Manyvids has payout bonuses for models you make it into the top 25. Those who can offer new/variety of services on the site might have an advantage in how many sales they make, pushing them farther up the list. This is unfair to those who do not have access to newer services.

That’s a really good point. Perhaps the group could be a different selection of models each time - keeping in mind it would be quite a bit of work for those studios and not necessarily helpful at all, but this would hopefully benefit everyone in the long run. Or else perhaps it could be a consultation system instead. Rather than testing it live, share it with studios and get their feedback on the full concept before it goes live. It wouldn’t catch as much as a beta testing group, but would be better than just rushing features out without considering what members and content producters actually think.

The idea of the beta testers selling something that others can't and potentially making it easier for them to get into the top bonus numbers could be solved by not letting the things that are being tested go towards that rank.

Yeah but if beta testers have access to a type of advertisement that other MV Stars don’t, there’s no income generated directly from that but it could still impact their sales.

I think it would be worth it to have a functional site, since everyone would benefit in the end, but there would definitely be ways around it benefiting some more than others initially. A beta testing group might not work (I was just spit balling ideas), but any consultation process that allowed models and members to give feedback prior to implementation would probably help a lot in itself. I’d personally be happy if they just hired someone like Destiny Diaz as a model consultant or something like that, since she’s always got really good ideas and knows what a lot of models and members need out of the site.  Anyway, *shrugs* I’d love any kind of sign that MV considered the business know-how of their content producers, really, but fixing the broken bits of the site really needs to be the priority. And bringing back useful tools that have been deleted like reordering videos! PRETTY PLEASE

Keep in mind, a beta test doesn't necessarily HAVE to be on the live site. A fake, staging site would serve perfectly well as a place to test new features without interfering with the whole rank aspect. The point is to test new features and generate feedback early. This is how enterprise web and software development companies test new products. You never release alphas or betas on a live site.

Ah, of course! Yeah that’s would be great! A beta testing site where they could get select studios and models to test out how new features work, using their experience as sellers to give feedback before it goes live on the main site. Please do this MV, I’m sure lots of models would be more than happy to help test and give feedback for new features! 😃 Your content producers are savvy business people with a lot of experience in the industry from a very specific perspective, you should use that knowledge to help make the site great. 😊

Ladies, beta testing is beta testing. It should be part of any product development process, especially when it affects usability (and/or income!) for millions of people. I admit I did NOT read this entire thread on this subject, but CalliRose has the gist of it - would be great for testing and iteration before site-wide releases that may affect income. ALL OF THAT BEING SAID - beta testing often happens behind the scenes. Maybe MV did test it and received positive feedback from the test group - we have no way of knowing In any case MV I still love you for constantly trying new things. It's why I'm here!

I poll would be a great idea.

Lists is an interesting one -- at the moment the "favourites" tab doesn't even stay in alphabetic order, and also doesn't let customers see when each seller last uploaded or updated their store. I think before applying it to flyers they'd need to sort out the basic functionality first, though.

Allowing sellers to integrate polls / replies and treat it a bit more as a forum could dovetail with the wall concept -- allow customers to subscribe to conversations started by the seller, perhaps.

Click on the Letter/Mail icon next to your profile picture. On the next screen you should have 3 tabs: Messages, MV Crush Notes, and Flyer. Click on the flyer tab.

Yeah done that. The messages aren’t there

Mine were there the first day then vanished ¯\_(ツ_/¯

I emailed support, my inbox says 297 unread messages yet they don’t exist?

same here, let me know what they said

I second those ideas! especially the notifications and being able to auction items would be awesome!

You've got a much better handle on what customers would like / find useful than whoever's been involved in the last few feature releases. And it's quite validating the number of other people who've chimed in on the comment thread for this blog entry who're also sick of things being broken all the while.

Brilliant ideas, Destiny!

Great ideas, Destiny! I love the categories drop-down feature but rearranging vids was something I did all the time to switch things up or keep stuff organized a certain way, and auctions would be super cool!

That is really are, i bet u guys will receive tons of promotion ....and its really nnoying...right thing to do is let members choose their MV flyer list

Yeah, breaking the existing "favourites" page is a shitty thing to do (and I'm guessing they'll remove it rather than fix it, which will be more lost sales because it's the only way customers can keep track).

I think the only thing moderating the spam is that a lot of people I've bought from aren't active here any more, whether because they've moved on from porn entirely or were affected by reduced visibility on the site.

I can't see any of mine either 😮

I’ve unfortunately have already started unfollowing people. I’m inundated with messages or flyers or whatever. This doesn’t make me want to buy more. It’s noisy and impersonal and I just want to opt out. A good deal on a video rarely ever motivated me to buy a video. I’d much rather buy a video I like or from someone I made a personal connection with than just buy a video because it’s 20 percent off.

Thanks for sharing !!! Buyer behavior always super elucidating!

Have you tried using the the tab and changing it to unread?

I just suggested this in a ticket as I can’t even delete all of these now. And to unfollow them to not get these messages isn’t thought out. I believe lots of us follow to keep up with who we like more easily or those that have piqued our interest for later!!

Agree, although half the time the message indicator doesn't work anyway -- it either still shows unread messages when they've all been read or fails to show new messages.

I primarily used the "hearts/favorites" feature to keep track of which videos I've purchased (because quite frankly the purchase history page is completely useless for me at this point). I feel like the past few feature updates were done only with model's best interests in mind without ever giving thought to how members would react to it. I hate receiving ads in any form; at least give me an option to opt out of it. This new feature has prompted me to unfollow a lot of people.

Imagine waking up and seeing 20-30 ads in your personal email every single morning. How would you react? That's roughly how many flyers have ended up in my inbox yesterday when they released the update and this morning when I woke up. My email and physical mail already bombards me with marketing. At this point I've been desensitized to them and just end up deleting them or throwing them in the trash without ever reading them.

The site design's poor for anyone who buys content fairly regularly -- no searching or filtering of purchases, etc -- and this is just another example that probably works okay for someone who's purchased five vids total in the time they've been on the site, but encourages active members to be less so by not being thought through and not being tested. It honestly feels as if development is being done by very inexperienced staff, the type we'd joke is the stereotypical teenage back bedroom setup where people are happy to be paid in free product and pizza slipped under the door, but that increasingly feels as if it's actually the case. It certainly doesn't feel like a business with anything like a roadmap, bug tracking, etc.

Maybe I'm jaded by being involved with stuff like this professionally, but ultimately it's not in seller best interests to drive off customers. Give people control of the fire hose and what updates and notifications they get or (like with the auto-Twitter posts) a lot will be turned off.

Though I like the feature there should totally be a way to opt out or choose who you get them from. There has to be a way to make it less spammy. I would be super annoyed too having all those messages.

I admit I am a bit biased too since I have worked in the advertising and marketing industries as a UX Designer and User Researcher. It seems a bit of an oversight to not consider different user types and behaviors. New features should have been tested with a smaller group before rolling it out to the masses. Early feedback would have highlighted so many of these issues otherwise.

1)  Agreed, It's terrible for heavy use members. Could be a great feature if done right.

2 )  Financial Sanity and MV = I support models by driving a 22 year old sports car which never needs repairs and gets 38 mpg. My low carbon footprint and lack of car payments channels cash to models. I see it as a type of charity which saves the Environment and supports World Peace by increasing model happiness through orgasms!

This is awesome, lol.  

Hi I'm hot

Oh yikes, I hope this gets fixed!

Yeah. Seems such a waste of a decent feature. You can only see older messages when the MV star reposts next message.

Yeah, the feature's a waste of time as implemented -- sellers won't know that messages aren't being seen and ManyVids have ensured this by automatically subscribing customers to everyone they've ever purchased a vid from. If it was genuinely opt in,  didn't have arbitrary cut offs, and worked separately to the existing messaging system, it'd potentially be quite nice (although still no substitute for a simple feature such as being able to subscribe to a seller and see when they released new content).

But let's face it, MV don't test features and don't give a toss about customers -- they just want to spam them.

Oh, and apparently I now have followers, but no way of knowing who and presumably no way of posting to them because the "flyer" system is just for sellers. Wouldn't it have made sense to only show the "follow" button on seller accounts? It doesn't have to be pointless -- it'd be quite nice if following someone let you see what other activity they have, such as comments left in discussions, etc -- but currently is.

Oh that’s so disappointing to hear. I was immediately psyched at the idea of this feature. I’ve been wanting a way for members to “follow” models (I’d love if there could be an activity tab members could go to with the models they have followed and their recent updates), and thought this might work, but then I saw your comment! That’s... just so disappointing! PLEASE FIX THIS MV! It’s such a good idea, and could be great, but it would be a good plan if you beta tested these things and got them properly working before release.

Honestly, Manyvids, if you made this an activity tab with updates of new uploads from followed models, along side the “All activity” tab, this feature would be amazing - helpful for members and not so spammy. It could be a tab called “My models” perhaps. Just something to consider... ...though I know I’ve suggested this a lot before.

The site's needed a real "follow" feature since it launched memberships. As it stands, there's no reliable and comprehensive built-in mechanism to know when new content is uploaded by a particular seller apart from checking back on pages. A "my models" like feature (which is what the "MV Stars" tab on member profiles could be) for both memberships and sellers that customers have otherwise deliberately chosen to receive updates on would be incredibly simple to implement, in technical terms.

That is exactly what we need!

CalliRose always has such useful ideas.  MV should listen carefully to everything she says!
(and hire her as a consultant or innovation manager!!)

Same, and it sucks because I love showing love for other models but not really interested in their promo codes ect.

And how does the "MV Stars" tab work now? Just unfollowed someone to see what happens, and they're still on the tab (which is what I want, it's useful as a reminder to check their profile) -- so how do we now add creators to that tab?

I'd be more in favour of new features if you didn't keep breaking existing ones.

And another fifteen posts in the time I was writing that, and the new ones aren't in order.

Yea... is this hearts on videos? I used to heart alot of stuff in lieu of you guys not having a "Buy Later" or "Wish list" type feature. I'm so confused.

It seems completely unusable in its current form. The tab shows that there are new messages, except they aren't presented in order, and it isn't possible to see most of them without unfollowing other people. It's like the web development's being done by kindergarteners who've overdosed on haribo.

😙

Also, when you un-follow a flyer, the recent activities list says "you are following this profile" since all previous hearts are being converted to forced follows.

Wecant

We can't see who we're "following" either (not that in most cases customers have deliberately followed sellers, it's all been done on the basis of previous purchases and likes). Most of the messages aren't being seen because there's an arbitrary limit on how many are seen. MV presumably expects sellers to just shout into the void, and customers to shut up and take the spam -- rather than this be what could actually be quite a cool feature.

Thankfully no. That would be insane when MV have automatically subscribed customers to anyone they've ever bought a vid from.

MV will add it soon. Right after whoever was responsible for UI testing walks the plank :). Not showing here either.

Thank you for your comments. Please email us at help@manyvids.com, we'll keep an eye out for your ticket and gladly assist you further!

Sent a report in.

maybe you can relay that to your technical team, I am shure some other users have the same problem. I had to disable the cosmetic filters in "uBlock Origin" (adblocker) then it worked

YES! To MV, the follow button is blocked by adblockers. I just disabled Adblock Plus on Chrome, and now it's showing. That's going to catch anyone blocking ads!

Something similar happened with checkout pages not so long ago. If they can't test the rest of the website as a matter of course before new features go live, it'd seems like it'd take a lot to get them to consider doing it with the type of common browser plugins that anyone security-conscious who browses porn uses.

I have adblocker and it worked for me immediately.

It's right under our profile photo

Not here it's not - checked a fresh reload & browser restart. Nothing. MV Bug Squad need to get a move on ;).

Hey Jerome, I see the follow button under Mystie Mae's profile picture. If you are not seeing it, please contact our support team so they can further assist you at help@manyvids.com

Hey, we are converting all of the hearts into follows You should see it reflected on your end within the hour!

It is starting to show up in the "your activity" tab

So everyone who we have ever liked we are following? 

Apparently. There doesn't seem to be any page listing all of the accounts we've been automatically made to follow.

A page where they list who we are following would be a good start! I now wonder why they didn't think of such a simple solution.

Hey, yes we are converting all of the hearts and purchases into follows You should see it reflected on your end within the hour!

Hey, we are converting all of the hearts into follows You should see it reflected on your end within the hour!