Type of Site: Performer
Address: 
www.mercedesashley.com
Price: 
$19.95/month
Date of Review: 
November, 2005
Pornreports Rating: 

    

Review:

Just for a change, let's start off with the bad news and get it out of the way. This site is ugly. Now Mercedes Ashley is not ugly. In fact she's a hot latina pornstar. But her site looks like hell, the layout and navigation suck, and the technical quality of the content is below average.

Still, it's not a bad site. Read on.

Let's start off with Mercedes. She's a well-known pornstar with a long line of distinguished credits. Her site is a sort of collection of a lot of the different stuff she's done, from magazine spreads to radio shows. There's a bit of everything here, so we might as well go through the main menu. There are three basic sections:

(1) Webcam and Videos: Here you'll find links to a porn pot-pourri of material featuring Mercedes, including scenes from some of her studio features, behind-the-scenes clips, appearances on shows like Playboy's Night Calls and Lex in the City, radio interviews, her webcam (the weekly Ho Show), her housecam (we tried to hunt her down but only found some bald guy working on the computer in her office), a bunch of masturbation videos, and a whole series of movies she calls the "Member Fuck Off." 

The deal with the Member Fuck Off is that if you're a member and you want to fuck Mercedes you get your name put on a list and she goes through the list in order until she gets to you. The catch is you have to stay a member to keep your name on the list. And we're not sure how long the list is. So is it legit? Probably. We watched some of these videos and we have to say there were some really, really pathetic specimens in that motel room. So maybe the Average Joe does have a shot. Just be advised that Mercedes is really in shape. According to her schedule she's practising her kickboxing every day. So you'd better be ready to hold your own. 

Anyway, there were 26 of these Member Fuck Off episodes up when we visited, and it looks like they're adding one a week. Which is pretty darn good.

Other items in this section include the usual whack of feeds. Stuff like Live Pornstars, Live Asian Women, Live Czech  Republic Women, and--we shit you not--Live Siberian Women. We just had to click on that one. Normally we don't bother with the live feeds at all, but this just seemed too weird.

It wasn't. It was just the usual porn girls hanging around. Nothing to do with Siberia.

Issues to flag: video quality isn't that great. It varies a bit but it's all 320x240 and the playback is usually between 250 and 350 kb/s. And a lot of it isn't very well produced. The Member Fuck Off movies are dark and not that well photographed. And the sound seems to be coming from a boombox someone turns on when the fucking starts. Kind of grim. And the way it's organized isn't all that clear. There are links to things like "Mercedes Bonus Footage" and "Custom Masturbation Videos 3, 5, 7 and 8." Where are Videos 1, 2, 4, and 6? This gives you some idea of how messy it is.

It was hard to get a read on just how much video was here. Some of the links went to single clips while others went to pages where there were more than 20. Overall it looked like about 60 clips total. But some of these clips are 30 minutes or longer while others are only two.

(2) Photo Galleries: This is another grab-bag of stuff. Looked to be about 50 galleries, maybe 40 of which feature Mercedes. There are a number of Friends galleries as well, and things like a gallery of pictures that members have taken of their dicks (or found on the Internet and then sent to Mercedes in the hope that she'll think that they belong to them). Same issues as in the video section: the technical quality is below average (lots of screen captures and scans, and an average pic size of 400x600), and the navigation is a crapshoot. Links are to things like "Mini Amateur Photo Gallery" (which has no pictures of Mercedes) and "Mercedes Gallery #4".

(3) Fetish: This is a significant section because Mercedes has done a bunch of kinky stuff. Mostly in the femdom niche, seeing as how she is such a tough chick. There's some dominatrix, mean bitch, stomping, strap-on and even wrestling content. Same problem with the vague links that don't really tell you what you're getting. From labels like "Humiliation Gallery," "Foot Worship" and "Mercedes in Stockings" you can't even tell if it's a video or a photo gallery (there is a mix of both in this section). Anyway, 25 links total.

In addition to these three main content areas there's also a forum/diary that's being regularly maintained, a schedule, and some bonus stuff (like the AVN feed).

Breaking it down into plus and minus columns. Like we said off the top, the big minus is the presentation. It's messy, and the technical quality just isn't there. There also isn't a whole lot of exclusive content. Most of the stuff here has been collected from various other sources (there are even vidcap galleries from the turns she's done on reality porn sites like MILF Hunter and Dirty Latina Maids). Updates are occurring, but unfortunately nothing is dated so we couldn't tell you how often.

In the plus column you have to put Mercedes herself. She's got a hard body and a lot of personality. In the movies where she's called upon to do something more than just fuck she performs well. In addition, with things like the diary and the housecam we really got the sense that this was a hands-on operation. Even if you don't get to fuck her (which is another--potentially--big plus) you will be able to make contact with a genuine star. 

And, maybe best of all, it's a reasonable price. Let's face it, for $20 you shouldn't be expecting a total juggernaut of a site these days. Despite needing a redesign job and some technical upgrades, we thought this was a fair deal for her fans. But if you're not a fan, or if high-definition video is the main thing you're looking for, you're not going to be very impressed.

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