Interview with Mark Tiarra
interview by DUC
Thursday December 5, 2002

I speak by phone 12/2/02 with Mark Tiarra, 33 years old, of www.lumyr.com.

Luke: "I remember in Montreal in 1999 when Ron Levi said you were the Jimmy Hoffa of the business. And he meant it as a compliment."

Mark: "He meant pulling people together for a cause. Living here in New Jersey, my idea of Jimmy Hoffa is bullying people and getting killed for it. I don't think I have an ounce of bully in me. It's the opposite."

Luke: "Well, you've certainly bullied on the boards over the past week (gof---yourself.com and oprano.com)."

Mark: "It's been a rough week. Other people have thicker skin for that stuff. I don't respond to it well. I've made mistakes before but I've always done my best to treat people well. So when you get attacked for something you didn't f--- up, it's tough. Unfortunately, people read soundbites. So even when you get things resolved cleanly, it makes an impression without people knowing the whole story."

Luke: "So how did you get into the adult industry?"

Mark: "I was doing graphic design with the print media in late 1995. We did work for Nabisco. One of our clients, the Independent Music Association, asked me to do a website for them. Being someone who would never say no to a job, I said sure, even though I didn't know how to do it. While I was surfing around looking for examples, and being a horny male, I was looking at porn sites, and I saw pictures I liked. I thought I could do a better job building a website with high-class graphics.

"I made a site, allthebeautifulthatiswoman. I spent a lot of time on the photoshop end of things. At the time, PersianKitty.com's list was new. It was alphabetical. I was at the top. I knew Rick Muenyong from the YNOT network. We'd trade photoshop tips. I met people through YNOT and started making money through [those contacts]. I started doing design work because people liked the site."

Luke: "How did you get into the content game?"

Mark: "At the first, I did not have a clue. Like everyone else out there, I put up pictures that I found on other sites. Then I got told I was guilty of copyright infringement. I never even considered it before. I took the stuff down and learned about buying content and going that route. These were free sites.

"I never got involved with operating my own pay site until Covergal, which was a partnership with Tommy from Tommy's Bookmarks and Steve from Pornqueens and Mark Miniri. Tommy was going to supply most of the traffic to it. He ended up getting a new business partnership so we never got it to a huge membership level.

"When I was starting to make money in the business, I formed UAS (United Adult Sites) and put all of my efforts into that not-for-profit thing. A lot of guys that I knew at that time went the route of the pay site. If I had gone that route, I would've made a lot more money. UAS was good for the information I gathered, and the contacts I accumulated...

"I started United Adult Sites in early 1996. It was the time of the first Communication Decency Act [designed to shut down the internet porn industry]. Ron Levi (aka Fantasyman) helped out a ton.

"It was obvious that the people writing the CDA did not have a clue, though they had an honorable idea in trying to keep kids off of this stuff. We realized we had to put together a group like the NRA is for gun owners. It was not understood widely enough by smaller operators to get the needed funding for the fight. I toiled for three years on it, working for almost nothing, to help people, get people to understand, and giving out free advice.

"So much of the industry is made up of single operators, not necessarily people with a lot of business acumen. Guys like Ron and Maxcash are the exception, not the rule."

Luke: "What sorts of things were you doing in your UAS capacity?"

Mark: "It was mostly gathering legal information for people and raising funds to form a lobby. When Stephen Cohen started suing people who had "sex" in their domains, we got money to attorney Joel Dichtor [who helped Gary Kremen, the rightful owner of sex.com, get his domain name back]. I spent most of my time answering emails and helping guys out. A lot of guys at tradeshows would walk up to me: 'Hey man, do you remember me? You helped me out...'

"Most of the emails were from people who weren't getting paid. There were disagreements over traffic issues. Stolen content. I acted as a mediator. Most of the time, having someone come in to mediate helps things work out.

"I always tried to take the approach of things being a win-win and so I registered winwinwebmasters.com and I.m going to do things on there like offer mediation services and put together co-op things like where a group of clients can order services from other people and get discounts because they buy in bulk as a group."

Luke: "This is not an industry where many people want to give back."

Mark: "Not really."

Luke: "Most people are in it for a quick buck now and screw everyone else."

Mark: "That's probably true."

Luke: "Did you burn out on doing UAS?"

Mark: "Yeah, I got tired of preaching to the choir. Few people understood [the need for UAS]. It floundered for a while and then the stuff with VISA came up and a bunch of the big players got together and formed GIA (Global Internet Alliance which merged with the Free Speech Coalition). I stepped away from the industry for about a year trying to put together a network gaming center. Then I got busy with Maxcash. I went to the [AVN] tradeshow in Florida in August and got a lot of design work.

"I've helped a lot of people make a ton of money. When I made considerable money, I blew it on dumb business deals and many rookie mistakes."

Luke: "Do you miss having an industry leadership capacity?"

Mark: "Not at all."

Luke: "How has adult internet design changed over the past year?"

Mark: "You're seeing an influx of talented designers, especially from Russia and Eastern European countries. The prices are low though they don't always put a site together in a way that converts. I'm always talking about how pretty doesn't mean profit."

Luke: "Your speciality is designing sites that convert."

Mark: "That's what I'm all about. I'm going to build you a profit center and I'm going to stay involved with the site."

Luke: "Do you enjoy working in the adult industry?"

Mark: "Yes. I don't enjoy sometimes the stuff that goes on on the boards and the amount of egos running high. As long as I'm designing sites, that's cool, be they adult or non-adult. I got out of publishing sites. That bothered me a bit because of the worries about legality and obscenity."

Luke: "What are the keys to creating a website that converts?"

Mark: "Download times, trying to keep your pages to 100k or less. Another key is making things fit into a single screen, particularly the join links. Use high-contrast with the text compared to the other elements. Certain colors on join links convert at a higher percentage."

Luke: "Are design issues different for adult sites?"

Mark: "Adult sites are much more specific. The people you do the work for watch the site much more closely because it is going to be a profit center immediately if it is done properly. Non-adult sites are sometimes just there for vanity or for information. The non-adult clients will often be more into the bells and whistles."

Luke: "Is feedback from surfers valuable?"

Mark: "You usually don't get enough to make it valuable. Watching statistics is more effective."

In 1998, the New York Times published an article about Mark Tiarra calling him "the elder statesman of porn." He was in his late twenties at the time.