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CumTV is
now one of the largest players in the cam area. Although I still
think of them as "cumtv" actually they have many names and now focus
around the "cams.com" domain. The company behind it --
streamray.com -- is now merged with the AdultFriendFinder people; who
are in turn owned by Various Inc which is busily buying up the world's
dating sites -- the just took over Nerve.com for example.
 As
for CumTV -- previously it used a java based chat system but as of
around mid 2005 they have migrated over to a Macromedia Flash based
video system. The flash based version is supposed to be much
better for the hosts -- more stable and less freezing or crashes than
the old version of the software.
One feature is larger video windows, you have to click the rather
subtle diagonal arrow in the top left of the chat client but then you
get either small, medium or large size chat window:
  
As cam2cam is becoming more popular, cams.com has also implemented
this. Basically, if you turn on your own webcam, the girls can see
you too. Except in this case it's at an extra cost. Unlike
imLive or Flirt4free
which has no extra charge.
There are a reasonable number of girls online (around 600, not too
excessive like over 1,000 in myfreecams ) and they are some nice
looking ones. Also there is plenty of FREE video chat -- they don't
force you to pay for anything but there are charges for getting girls
into live private webcam sessions.
If you find a favorite girl you want to keep in touch with you can
write emails to her by using her user name @ cumtv.com. This,
however, is limited to premier member or basic member and you have
joined her fan club.
Cumtv also provides separate boy and girls sites:
www.camgirlslive.com and
www.camboyslive.com so check it out. The guys site is not busy
though, maybe only one or two guys at a time are online.
New in Feb 2006 is a feature that hosts can record videos which the
customers can download including download to a video iPod. At
first these were charged by the minute, but in 2009 the rules changed
and it is now a flat $5 fee for each recorded video no matter how long.
It isn't clear to me how much of that the host gets to keep.
There are individual fan clubs for each host, and also Premier
memberships available. Each of these gets you 10% off the cost of
private chat (with that host only in the case of a fan club) giving you
up to 20% off potentially. Premier membership fee is converted to
your local currency. One month membership is about USD20, $40 for
3 months or $118 for a year (half the price if you pay it monthly).
The next level of membership is V.I.P. which is free. It's more
useful if you ever need to spend more than USD100 or more coz that's the
limit for basic and premier members. Premier members also get 5
free recorded shows each month.
Finally, if you are looking for more free half nude chat, you should
check out Flirt4free or PeekShows. Read my review
about
Flirt4free
and
PeekShows
review.
For hosts effective May 24th, 2007 Streamray.com will begin paying
models up to 45% of revenue MINUS credit card (10%) and marketing
expenses (25%). That's a direct quote, I presume the minuses are
from the host percentage and not from the gross otherwise there would be
nothing left. Still that's a big cut they are taking out.
Also you can choose to reduce your own percentage to as little as 15%
-- which places you higher on the list of hosts. Hence more
traffic. So more business at a lower percentage potentially means
more income -- it's up to you really to find the right level that makes
you happy.
They are also starting a new model incentives which begins with a
$100 daily payout for the "Model of the Day" and a $1000 monthly payout
for the "Model of the Month". Hosts that run a fan club get 100% of that
income, well minus credit card and "marketing costs".
Chathosts can set geographic blockings but seems as though it is only
for US based people as it is "state" based.
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Webcam
Wizard!
