Adult Content and the Mobile Phone
It’s a truism that all new media is driven first by pornography. If you remember 16mm stag films or have seen “Boogie Nights,” you might agree.
The carriers’ grip on mobile content has prevented that from happening on the mobile phone in the U.S. (even as Playboy Mobile’s Ed Lang reported the XXX content streaming on European phones).
But, from my vantage point (and I worked for a post production company that was a hub of the San Fernando Valley-based porn industry–another story for another time), it has always been just a matter of time before the world of porn and the mobile phone got together. It’s worth noting how the porn industry has changed: the advent of cheap digital cameras moved the industry from an insular, some would say mob-controlled, domain to amateur night.
Now, a news item in Advertising Age reports the rude shock that CBS got when the network’s iPhone app, Eyemobile for iPhone was used to provide visuals of much more than local news stories (apparently the risque images/ads have been removed). The article goes on to talk about what led to the slip-up, which is of much less interest to me than the fact that it happened at all. Garden walls or not, as the potential revenues from mobile video content soars, those sneaky porn-meisters are going to find a way to go mobile.
Tags: adult content, Advertising Age, CBS, Ed Lang, Eyemobile for iPhone, iPhone, Playboy Mobile, pornography
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Content, Devices.
Wide access to adult content on the mobile device is going to happen and should happen – but in the correct fashion. From flirting to more risque services, adult content is something that people want, will find ways to locate and are willing to pay premium pricing for. It’s an exciting service area for those in the mobile services industry. The key to its success and longevity is to find the balance between protecting and enabling the mobile audience. Noone wants minors or those without sufficient maturity to be subjected to/ have easy access to such content – but capable adults should be able to view/ engage in such services if they want to.
Adult content has always been an early adopter of technology. They were the first to jump on the VCR, the only really successful application for 900 numbers, early adopters of pay per view and quick to get on the net. Why should mobile be any different. If the phone companies open the door adult entertainment will be one of the first to rush in.
Adult content has appeared on the iPhone long before all of this. There are a ton of porn sites that have optimized their sites for the iPhone. The rich web browser on the iPhone allows for porn vendors to circumvent the carriers’ walled garden. I wrote about it on my blog here:
http://www.quicklybored.com/2008/10/porn-cbseyemobile-discussing-mobile-porn-business/
In Europe porn is very common on mobile. In some places, it counts for 30% of all video traffic.
The networks are well aware of the revenue potential. I think they are way too scared right now for people associating adult content with the networks – even with age verification. When I worked with a Tier 1 carrier, they reviewed each screensaver with a microscope to make sure that not even a nipple shadow was visible beneath a bikini.
There is science behind it, though. It wasn’t too long ago that Alltel profiled itself as “the moral network” with very strict content guidelines, when the other major carriers started carrying calendar girl-type content. This is a business decision motivated by the state of American culture (Puritanism on the surface) and with adult content the networks will expose themselves to a churn that the new “adult/oriented” content cannot possibly compensate for.
Another factor is the rising popularity of wifi-enabled phones which allow the user to hit the internet straight without the carriers filtering.
This problem (if you want to call it that) is very specific to the U.S. since the carriers own the traffic on their networks. In Europe content companies do not have to ask for permission to sell content to any subscribers, which opens up for a more deregulated content offering.
So, I don’t see the major U.S. players associating themselves with adult content until we can change on the beach without being arrested.
I work in a mobile content company and we have great results with the adult entertainment contents (wallpapers, videos, games). It work very well in mobile channels.