YNOT – It’s with no small amount of pride that I have the pleasure of welcoming you to the brand new YNOT.com website. The website you see before you now has been under development ever since our company changed ownership several months ago, and we are sure you will find it to be no less than a major and significant upgrade over previous versions of YNOT.com.

So other than a new look, what’s new about YNOT.com?

The essence of the new YNOT.com is the community software that we’re using to operate it. Previous versions on YNOT relied on an old, out-of-date content management system that we had customized over the years to suit our purposes. The new YNOT.com however uses the popular vBulletin community suite, which means many of its features will be familiar to veterans of the online adult entertainment industry. This version of vBulletin though is more than just a message board forum; YNOT is now packing the punch of the most powerful online community software available.

Social Networking on YNOT. Other than a slick new design, the biggest change you’ll notice at YNOT is the new networking features. Our message boards now use the industry standard vBulletin forums, and we’ve also added social networking tools similar to those founds on Facebook – but without the content restrictions of Facebook. You can edit your profile to add information about yourself and your company, and add profile pictures and/or avatars for use in the forums. Like on Facebook, you can keep your own “Friends” list, create picture albums to share, post on “Walls” and even join groups or start your own.

News & Information on YNOT. One thing that isn’t going to change about YNOT is our commitment to providing the adult business world with important information about the industry. YNOT will still be your source for daily news stories that will keep you informed about your industry, although we will be adding additional writers in the coming months to provide better coverage for our readers. You will also find links to some of the stories that are published across the pond on our sister site YNOT Europe. Bottom line, YNOT will keep you informed.

You will notice however that the focus of the home page is somewhat altered; in addition to daily news stories, the new YNOT will be making a greater effort to feature original, exclusive business articles that will help you pick up valuable tips on everything from adult industry marketing to the more technical aspects of running a successful adult business. When you just want to read the news, click on the “News” button in the site’s primary navigation menu. When you’re looking for business articles, tutorials and helpful advice, click on the “University” button in the site’s primary navigation menu. None of this is new to YNOT, but you’ll find in the coming months that we have invested more time and resources into develop unique and valuable content that you won’t find elsewhere.

YNOT Directory Listings. In the course of running your adult business, you’ll occasionally find yourself in the market for professional services like website hosting services, billing services, content that you can license and use, affiliate programs you can promote, or third party software packages to spice up your website. The YNOT Directory is the most comprehensive listing of professional services for the adult industry. We gave it a nice facelift in honor of the all-new YNOT, and we also cleaned up our listings. When you’re logged into your YNOT account, you can even rate the listings in the YNOT Directory, or send us a note if one of our listings is out of date.

Do you offer a service or product that’s of interest to other adult businesses? The good news is that a Standard Listing in the YNOT Directory is completely free. Just log in and click the “Submit a Listing” link that can be found on most YNOT Directory pages.

Be Heard, Start a Blog. With the all-new YNOT, if you have a YNOT account then you can start your own YNOT blog! Just click the “Blogs” button in the site’s primary navigation to load the list of blogs. Now look for a green button that’s labeled “Create Blog” to get started. YNOT Blogs are a fantastic tool for generating 1-way links, and there’s just no good reason not to be blogging on YNOT. While we love original blogs, you might also use a blog as another place to publish a company newsletter that you already write. If you blog someplace else, publishing your posts on your YNOT blog will get you extra exposure. If you’re an independent contractor, you can blog about what you’re working on now as a means for attracting new clients. If you’re a model, you can blog about your latest photo shoots, website updates or appearances at events. YNOT Blogs is a very powerful new feature that you shouldn’t overlook.

Familiar Message Boards. For some time now, YNOT users have been telling us that they were not satisfied with our message board software. Specifically, you wanted vBulletin. It took us a while, but we have finally delivered the message board interface that you know and love.

See you on YNOT! We want to offer a huge thank you to YNOT members; some of you have been active participants on YNOT.com since the earliest days of the adult Internet industry. The launch of the all-new YNOT website is not and ending but a beginning. When YNOT Group, LLC purchased YNOT.com this past summer, I promised that YNOT would be an aggressive in its growth. We launched YNOT Europe this year, ran the first even YNOT Grand Prix in Barcelona last September, and now we have an all-new YNOT.com site. And, we’re just getting started. Look for more new developments from YNOT.com in the rest of 2010 and all throughout 2011, and please help us spread the word about the all-new YNOT!

[COLOR=#000000][LEFT][COLOR=#3e3e3e][FONT=Tahoma]Connor Young is a veteran internet entrepreneur and president of YNOT Group LLC.

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