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Warning: adult content...everywhere
I know I should be writing about the future of the desktop PC today, what with Intel's new dual-core processor and Nvidia's Nforce4 SLI Intel Edition chipset announcements. But I'm going to have to save that column for Friday, because what I really want to talk about is porn.
You probably already know that we have porn to thank for the current state of the Web--not the pop-up ads or the disturbing search results, but the rich content, streaming video techniques, widespread adoption and availability of broadband, and advertising schemes. Well, cell phones and mobile devices are the next frontier.
Dirty talk
I've been getting a lot of e-mail lately of the adult variety--and for once, I don't mean spam. I mean press releases about adult content designed specifically for cell phones. First, there were the Jenna Jameson moan tones. Then, Ron Jeremy started getting into the game with "groan tones," wallpaper, and video clips aimed at the mobile user. And then I got a couple of press releases from a company called Brickhouse Mobile, saying they'd worked out deals to distribute content from New Frontier Media and Wicked Pictures. (I simply can't bring myself to link to the latter, although I'm sure they're a perfectly respectable purveyor of adult entertainment content.)
I think two things are driving the cell phone and porn convergence. One is the our increasing desensitization to adult entertainment. Strippers are hip, pimp culture is everywhere, and Ron Jeremy is on VH1's The Surreal Life. The second factor, of course, is money. In March, a Boston-based research firm said the mobile adult-services market would reach $1 billion by 2008, and $5 billion by 2010. Interestingly though, Strategy Analytics analyst Nitesh Patel warned that adult services on mobile devices was not a "killer application" in the making, and said "fixed Internet services," not wireless devices, would continue to meet consumer need for adult entertainment.
L. R. Clinton Fayling, president of Brickhouse Mobile, begs to differ.
Follow the money
"History has taught us that on the Internet, adult content has definitely driven the Internet opportunity, and we definitely feel that it will do the same in the mobile industry," he told me. Make no mistake, Fayling says, "what has occurred on the Internet will occur here." And just what has occurred on the Internet? It's estimated that consumers spend $2 billion per year on adult entertainment Web sites. The total porn market in the U.S.? An estimated $10 billion in annual revenue. Brickhouse Mobile wants a piece of the pie.
Fayling and his partners are working with film studios and cell phone carriers to deliver adult content in the form of ring tones, wallpaper, video, and games, all downloadable directly to your phone. So why haven't you seen the guy next to you on the bus watching a little nudie clip? It's not for lack of demand--it's because the U.S. carriers simply aren't ready to go there, so to speak.
"In the United States, it's a very conservative marketplace compared to what's happening in South America and Europe," Fayling says. "We're not going to launch adult--that is, nude--content in this marketplace until the carriers are ready for it." When will that be? Fayling can't--or won't--say, but it's obvious to him and to me that certain carriers will bite the bullet before others. He won't name names, but I think it's fair to say that family-friendly T-Mobile won't be leading the charge.
So, are moan tones really what I have to look forward to on my morning commute? No, Fayling says. "It'll be a very small market, quite frankly, that'll want to have a moaning woman as their ring tone. That's really a novelty."
Show, don't tell
No, Fayling and Brickhouse Mobile are headed where cell phones are headed: bigger screens, higher resolution, more colors, and video capability.
"You see various carriers already promoting their services available for video, with news clips or sports. I see the adult category capitalizing, when carriers are comfortable with it, with the same stuff that sells on the Internet: still photos and video content."
Fayling is careful to point out, of course, that Brickhouse Mobile is working with carriers and the CTIA to develop standards and procedures for verifying the age of its customers, and I'm certain they are. I'm equally certain that, as he says, what happened on the Internet will happen with cell phones, too--once content is available, it's accessible, and people will find a way to get it. Cell phones may be the new frontier for adult entertainment, but they'll also be the new battleground for protecting kids from what we deem to be nefarious content.
It's no coincidence that the adult entertainment industry holds its annual conference at the same time as the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and very often holds parties in the same hotels as the swanky product shows--there's a lot of crossover there, and it's becoming increasingly natural. Plus, garden-variety adult entertainment is almost completely demarginalized in today's culture. If porn could drive Web innovation to the degree it has and still be reviled and hidden from the mainstream, imagine what it can do now that its most famous spokespeople are on reality shows and the covers of magazines. Love it or hate it, you'd better get ready. Porn is coming to a cell phone near you.
By Molly Wood, senior editor, CNET.com
Tuesday, April 5, 2005 I know I should be writing about the future of the desktop PC today, what with Intel's new dual-core processor and Nvidia's Nforce4 SLI Intel Edition chipset announcements. But I'm going to have to save that column for Friday, because what I really want to talk about is porn.You probably already know that we have porn to thank for the current state of the Web--not the pop-up ads or the disturbing search results, but the rich content, streaming video techniques, widespread adoption and availability of broadband, and advertising schemes. Well, cell phones and mobile devices are the next frontier.
Dirty talk
I've been getting a lot of e-mail lately of the adult variety--and for once, I don't mean spam. I mean press releases about adult content designed specifically for cell phones. First, there were the Jenna Jameson moan tones. Then, Ron Jeremy started getting into the game with "groan tones," wallpaper, and video clips aimed at the mobile user. And then I got a couple of press releases from a company called Brickhouse Mobile, saying they'd worked out deals to distribute content from New Frontier Media and Wicked Pictures. (I simply can't bring myself to link to the latter, although I'm sure they're a perfectly respectable purveyor of adult entertainment content.)
Is porn the ultimate technology driver? Do you have a moan tone? Tell me about it!
Post your comment hereL. R. Clinton Fayling, president of Brickhouse Mobile, begs to differ.
Follow the money
"History has taught us that on the Internet, adult content has definitely driven the Internet opportunity, and we definitely feel that it will do the same in the mobile industry," he told me. Make no mistake, Fayling says, "what has occurred on the Internet will occur here." And just what has occurred on the Internet? It's estimated that consumers spend $2 billion per year on adult entertainment Web sites. The total porn market in the U.S.? An estimated $10 billion in annual revenue. Brickhouse Mobile wants a piece of the pie.
Fayling and his partners are working with film studios and cell phone carriers to deliver adult content in the form of ring tones, wallpaper, video, and games, all downloadable directly to your phone. So why haven't you seen the guy next to you on the bus watching a little nudie clip? It's not for lack of demand--it's because the U.S. carriers simply aren't ready to go there, so to speak.
"In the United States, it's a very conservative marketplace compared to what's happening in South America and Europe," Fayling says. "We're not going to launch adult--that is, nude--content in this marketplace until the carriers are ready for it." When will that be? Fayling can't--or won't--say, but it's obvious to him and to me that certain carriers will bite the bullet before others. He won't name names, but I think it's fair to say that family-friendly T-Mobile won't be leading the charge.
So, are moan tones really what I have to look forward to on my morning commute? No, Fayling says. "It'll be a very small market, quite frankly, that'll want to have a moaning woman as their ring tone. That's really a novelty."
Show, don't tell
No, Fayling and Brickhouse Mobile are headed where cell phones are headed: bigger screens, higher resolution, more colors, and video capability.
"You see various carriers already promoting their services available for video, with news clips or sports. I see the adult category capitalizing, when carriers are comfortable with it, with the same stuff that sells on the Internet: still photos and video content."
Fayling is careful to point out, of course, that Brickhouse Mobile is working with carriers and the CTIA to develop standards and procedures for verifying the age of its customers, and I'm certain they are. I'm equally certain that, as he says, what happened on the Internet will happen with cell phones, too--once content is available, it's accessible, and people will find a way to get it. Cell phones may be the new frontier for adult entertainment, but they'll also be the new battleground for protecting kids from what we deem to be nefarious content.
It's no coincidence that the adult entertainment industry holds its annual conference at the same time as the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and very often holds parties in the same hotels as the swanky product shows--there's a lot of crossover there, and it's becoming increasingly natural. Plus, garden-variety adult entertainment is almost completely demarginalized in today's culture. If porn could drive Web innovation to the degree it has and still be reviled and hidden from the mainstream, imagine what it can do now that its most famous spokespeople are on reality shows and the covers of magazines. Love it or hate it, you'd better get ready. Porn is coming to a cell phone near you.
