Oink.CD & The Marketing Genius of By Invitation Only
I recently wrote about my friend’s quest to get an Oink invitation. Well, her search got her an invite, and she managed to get one for me as well. Once I joined, I was surprised at the VERY strict rules and to be honest, I was nervous to do anything for about 4 weeks.
It’s crazy how many people want an invite to Oink… some people wait for years on waiting lists and apparently people pay for Oink invites (which is not allowed). With the number of great torrent sharing sites, why does everyone want an Oink invite? I was reminded of ’s :
Several years ago, a hot chef in Chicago decided to go out on his own and open his first restaurant. Realizing how competitive the market was, he did a neat thing. He never opened it to the public. He refused to accept reservations from strangers.
If you wanted to get into Les Nomades, you had to be a member. And how did you do that? Well, the first 500 people were given memberships because the chef knew them as regular customers at his old job, and he personally invited them. Then he told each member that they were welcome to sponsor other members. All they had to do was vouch for someone and he’d make them a member too.
So, what’s in it for the member to nominate someone else? Simple. They scored points with their friends as powerful sneezers because they could “get you in” to the hottest restaurant in town.
Of course, this wouldn’t have worked if the restaurant hadn’t been spectacular. But it was. And it was exclusive. But by allowing his members to do his marketing for him, by giving them an altruistic tool that increased their power as professional sneezers, the chef was able to get out of the way and let his customers sell for him.
And Oink and Demonoid, and other “coveted” torrent sharing site, require an invitation from a member. I like Oink for the obvious reasons (the colour scheme). Both, however, are very fast, but do require you to maintain a sharing ratio. So now, with my membership there, I am to sell my friends on these sites… and invite them to join? ;)
It really is a great idea though, making your site exclusive to ensure that your site will be absolutely popular. There are about 180,000 members on Oink, and generally half of them log in daily. This would not work with every type of website of course. Any site, however, where the market is already flooded, could make it very exclusive and require invitation only.
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Posted: September 17th, 2007.
Comments: 15
Comments
Comment from eratik
Time: September 17, 2007, 1:33 am
meee!!! can i get an invite? please?
Comment from
Time: September 17, 2007, 3:17 am
So, can u invite me. lol! Im very interested and willing to play by their strict rules.
Comment from
Time: September 17, 2007, 10:56 am
Yes, but what *is* Oink? From the website it looks like a webcam site for a pig farm.
Comment from
Time: September 17, 2007, 2:22 pm
I promise i`ll never ask you to invite me in oink dot cd, just please don`t make this blog a “invited members only” kinda …
:-)
Comment from Danielle
Time: September 17, 2007, 11:27 pm
I would never do that for this blog - I don’t have any invites for Oink yet - you need to have a certain share ratio that I don’t yet have. I can’t invite to Demonoid but apparently that one is not as hard to get as Oink.
It would be a good idea to market a game site though - like a By Invitation Only WoW… ? People would be clambering to join the elite gaming “club” I think.
Comment from
Time: September 19, 2007, 12:01 am
I just found your blog today, and wanted to say - great post! I’ll be back.
Comment from Danielle
Time: September 19, 2007, 12:50 am
Thanks Steph! Hope to see you back! ;)
Comment from
Time: September 19, 2007, 4:42 am
All the sites that I joined that required a certain shared ratio ended in disaster for me heh. I couldn’t maintain the ratio. I miss those types of sites though, really fast downloads.
Comment from Danielle
Time: September 19, 2007, 7:00 pm
@Brown Baron - Well, if you want an invite let me know. ;)
Comment from hyroglyphik
Time: September 20, 2007, 9:25 pm
I used to be on oink a long time ago (about 2 years) but for some (retarded) reason I didn’t log in for a while and my account was closed due to inactivity. I’ve been trying to get back on for a while now, but it’s a lot harder than I thought. Oh well, I guess there’s not too many REO Speedwagon and Foreigner albums that I don’t have ;)
Comment from Ryan
Time: September 25, 2007, 2:12 am
Oh man I would do anything do get an invitation from Oink. I have been looking for a long time, am an avid torrent user and make sure I keep my ratio up. If you’re still reading this I appreciate the consideration.
Comment from Steve
Time: September 27, 2007, 7:34 am
been searching for months for invitation. now since it looks like demonoid is done would love to reconnect to world throught oink. please invite. I make sure to seed at least 2-4x’s of what i download. If you’re still reading this I appreciate the consideration.
Comment from Dave
Time: September 29, 2007, 12:37 am
It would be wonderful if i could get an invitation to oink.cd
I keep a very good ratio on all private trackers i am registered to:
bitsoup.org Ratio: 1.349 Uploaded: 39.78GB Downloaded: 29.48GB
demonoid.com (currently down)
underground-gamer.com Ratio: 2.437 UL: 73.78 GB DL: 30.28 GB
bitgamer.com Ratio: 2.286 UL 8.34 GB DL 3.65 GB
Comment from Danielle
Time: September 29, 2007, 1:34 am
I wish I could invite everyone to oink… unfortunately no invites yet. When I have some I will for sure pass them on to people who are very keen on having one. :)
Comment from boss23
Time: October 3, 2007, 3:30 pm
i have 10 invites to swap or give away to any one that is willing to trade … so have fun and click the link to the main fourm
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