June 6, 2012

Fighting Fake Photos

One of the main complaints from users of the site is that there are too many advertisers using photos that don't represent the individual on a listing. We have also had complaints from advertisers about it not being fair is someone else is using photoshoots of famous film stars or models. For Massage Republic to provide a useful service to users and results for advertisers, this is obviously not a great situation to be in.

Over the last couple of weeks we have put in place a new process for dealing with fake photos. This is now live and over the next weeks we will be proactively going through listings and evaluating them alongside all of the user reports we have.

This means advertisers who post fake photos will get their listings blocked and persistent offenders will get their accounts blocked. You have been warned!
May 28, 2012

What we did in May

First, thanks to all of you who have got in touch to send comments and positive feedback. Equal thanks go to those who complained something didn't work as expected - we love to hear about any problems as this helps us get better for everyone.

For everyone 

We have added in questions and improved reviews. Questions mean users can get in touch to ask individual questions about the services advertisers provide and everyone can see the answers (if they are useful) or they can be answered privately.

For users 

You now get a page where you can see all of your reviews, questions and favourites on a single page. When you make a review or question, it is now linked to your page so others can see this info. This is the first step we are making to creating a space you can share with others on the site.

For advertisers

We just launched a new individual listing view. This layout gives us more space to present listings better and we hope you like it. At the beginning of June you will also receive your first performance report. This will tell you about the activity on your listing in terms of views, messages and other contact actions.

I have to take this opportunity to ask the small amount of advertisers who are: posting fake photos, making multiple user accounts and generally trying to get better results by cheating to please stop. We are having to get really tough on blocking accounts and moderating listings; none of this will help you get better results in the long-run. Please get in touch if you have needs which are not covered today and we will try to help.

What next?

We're working hard to make Massage Republic a place where users and advertisers both get benefit from the site. Suggestions are welcome here. To keep updated, subscribe by RSS below or by email in 'Follow by email' on the right.
May 3, 2012

Verified photos & new galleries

Many users have been complaining about fake photos on the site (and reporting them, thanks!). We know this is a real concern and have just made a feature so that advertisers can verify their photos - you can find this from your listings page. This is a paid service because of the time involved in processing requests, but you do get priority in the listings, whether basic or paid, so we know this will pay back very quickly.

We also just launched a new photo gallery. As well as looking better on a normal browser it will produce better results on mobile devices, so users will be able to get a better view of your photos.
April 27, 2012

Payments

We heard a few people were having payment problems for multiple payments. Our current payment provider CCBill has made a change and this should work now. Please get in touch if you are having any problems.

We are looking into making available other payment providers. If you have any suggestions on what payments gateways you would like to see, please send us a mail or comment on this post.
April 23, 2012

More services

Tonight, for advertisers we added a bunch of new services you can define on your listing. We hope this will mean you can provide a more accurate list of all the services you are happy to provide.

For users, we have provided links to special pages for each service type to help them find what they are looking for more quickly.

Any feedback on the changes welcome.
April 13, 2012

New features on Massage Republic

We've been working hard for the last few weeks on a lot of improvements to the site.

For users 

We are happy to say we have just added a review feature, so you can share feedback about the services you have enjoyed, help others find good services or avoid less enjoyable experiences.

In a few days we will add a 'questions' feature so you will be able to ask questions to an advertiser and see questions and answers from others.

For advertisers 

A few users requested nationality, so we added this in and so you can put your nationality on your listing.

We will add in a feature so you can add a video in the next week or so. 

As a few people have been posting fake photos we have added in a moderation process to flag these up. They are nor useful for users and its unfair for real working girls and boys. If this happens to you, we will send an email and you will see a notice on the page of your listing. Upload real photos or prove they are yours and get in touch with us so we can take the notice off.

Thanks for all the positive feedback you have sent in. We're really happy that we are producing so many leads for you all.
March 8, 2012

Coming out of beta

We have now been live for a month in our public beta test. It has been a great start as there are now over 800 listings on the site. Thanks to all of you who have listed and for some of the great feedback we have had.

We have generated in excess of 2,000 enquiry actions. For each listing, we are now tracking every time a user does one of the following:
  • Sends a message
  • Clicks through to a personal website
  • Clicks to see a phone number
We hope to be able to make this information available to advertisers in the near future.

If you have any feedback, please don't hesitate to post in the forums here. We would love to hear from you as we continue to work hard to provide an excellent place for you to advertise!