The Future of Mobile Web 2.0 Part IIa - Mobile Porn 2.0

One of the areas of great wrangling in the Mobile Web saga is The Business Model that shall emerge (more in a later post). But something that was definitely not spoken about at the Informa Mobile Web 2.0 conference when this subject was broached was (ahem) Porn 2.0........

Any observer of previous media, from papyrus to the internet, cannot but have observed that porn is an early adopter....and thus (in theory) one should be looking at mobile porn to see the patterns of emerging use. So, where else to go but to the blogosphere for a quick root around:

Jumptap notes that we are all, by and large, at it - searches as per April 2007:




And then there is the size question Wired, for example:

Bloggers and journalists have been all over a Yankee Group study released Monday that predicts a $1 billion global market for mobile porn by 2008.

On the off chance you missed the flurry, let me clarify. Mobile porn is not a big bus that travels to underserved rural areas a la mobile libraries or hearing test centers. Rather, it's the next logical step for adult content delivery.

Or is it?

On one hand, mobile phones are an ideal content receiver. We carry them with us everywhere we go, and we can send and receive data packets from just about anywhere, too. Despite dead zones -- which for some reason seem to include my desk and my bed no matter what city I'm in -- phone service is ubiquitous compared with wireless internet.

On the other hand, if you wanted to watch two or more people having sex, they'd have to be very, very small people to fit into a phone display. Even the Treo that I covet tops out at 320 by 320.

The iPhone has already been branded the iPorn by some wags...size clearly counts

Privacy is also an issue - Wired again

The whole point of a mobile phone is to escape the tyranny of the phone cord and talk while we're out and about. On the train, standing in line, walking down the strand at Venice Beach. That's the joy and the curse of cell phones -- we use them in public. And even when you think you're being discreet, you never know who might be looking over your shoulder.

Hmmm...I predict a run on these video glasses then....

According to Laptop magazine (that's top.....)

Indeed, mobiles are proving to be a potent distribution channel for adult entertainment; according to Juniper Research, the total mobile adult-content market was worth $1.4 billion in 2006. Formats range from interactive video and SMS chatting to explicit wallpapers and adult-themed games.

Industry analysts believe mobile adult entertainment could be big. "We see the [global] market rising to about $3.3 billion by 2011," said Bruce Gibson, research director for Juniper Research. "That figure could actually double...we took a conservative view of this particular segment of the [mobile entertainment] industry," he added.

(So the entire Mobile Porn market is about 1/3rd of the putative value of Facebook.....hmmm)

However, MoPorn co's are keeping their heads down...at 3GSM 2007 for example

Mobile 'erotic entertainment' companies are thick on the ground at 3GSM this year, although the hall in which they are gathered is keeping a low profile. While many companies are making money from producing porn for handheld devices, very few are prepared to talk about it.

The bread-and-butter of the mobile porn industry is still SMS. Uses subscribe to one-on-one chat with a model (usually working in a call centre), but these are increasingly being sold a branded services with celebrity porn actresses.

"SMS pays the bills, but other formats are becoming more popular," said the representative of a mobile erotica company who wished to remain nameless.

"Wallpaper is getting bigger, but movie loops are the future. Very few people are going to sit and watch a whole film on a handheld, but they will pay for a clip."

And then there is...er....user generated content:

The representative added that the increasing integration of camera technology in phones is already making porn a Web 2.0 player.

However, Porn has caused the rise and fall of more than a few good men - Amp'd for example in July 2007

Aside from the still very valid questions about how Amp’d blew $360million in funding and ran up $100million in debt, there are now some interesting questions as to why a company primarily marketing to teens was producing X-Rated content.

Teens interested in X rated content - who would have thought.....

And then the age old question - what do women want?

One question that remains largely unanswered is whether mobile adult entertainment will attract more female consumers, who traditionally are quick to adopt mobile services. "Being a woman in the industry, many people have asked me what mobile erotica would be for women and if I have any intention of doing something," said Julia Dimambro, director and founder of Cherry Media. "To be perfectly honest, I still don't know what that would be. Creating a compelling proposition for erotica on mobiles for women would need to go beyond the 'hunk wallpaper' or a video clip of a fireman playing with himself." The two initial ideas the company has played with are erotic stories and chat. "We see a lot of women access our 'Male' SMS chat services for example, so there is obviously an interest out there."

At the conference it seemed like you couldn't make a speech without mentioning Twitter or Jaiku etc, but maybe people have missed the plot, and its Twatter (who are you doing now) that they should be talking about