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Talk About an Obscene Phone Call | January 9, 2006
By Ian Harvey
Why did large numbers of people buy their first VCR? Here’s a hint: it wasn’t for Disney movies.
Just as the porn industry pushed video players into many homes, the demand for smut also drove the growth of the Internet. And so it continues today: screaming ecstasy ring tones, hooker solicitations, explicit pictures and movie clips from both commercial porn houses and the folks next door are creating a multi-billion-dollar market for the mobile phone.
Mike Herman is channel manager for Xobile, a subsidiary of Internet porn giant Adult Entertainment Broadcast Network (AEBN) in North Carolina. Xobile provides about 75 per cent of the adult content on the ’net. He said the exponential growth of mobile porn will dwarf the growth rate we’ve already seen on the Internet.
U.K.-based Juniper Research estimated the mobile sex market globally was worth about US $500 million in 2004 and that it will climb to US $2 billion by 2009.
Unlike the ’net, which suffered the birthing pains of poor video compression and molasses-like speeds back before broadband replaced 14Kpbs dial-up, mobile’s infrastructure is already in place and the content digitalized, said Herman.
“Viewing porn online grew 1,800 per cent from 1998 to 2003. In 2004, about 75 per cent of paid content on the Internet was porn,” Herman said. “For mobile, the content is there and the speed is already there.”
Xobile president Harvey Kaplan said the only thing holding back the North American mobile market is a lack of both compatible handsets and widespread deployment of faster 3G networks.
But he said the appetite for adult content will drive the uptake of 3G among consumers, noting Xobile has more than 5,000 two-minute clips optimized for tiny mobile screens and the rights to another 41,000 titles. S ome 30 per cent of its business is from North America, with the balance spread between Europe and Asia.
“No one seems to mind that the screen is so small,” Kaplan said. “It’s that it’s a private thing they can take with them anywhere, even at family gatherings.”
Canada Behind
AEBN already clears US $3.2 million a month from 100 million terabytes of Video-On-Demand downloads, and K aplan is taking it one step further by launching two hardcore Mobile TV channels with 24/7 broadcasts in January.
In Canada, however, we’re not there yet, said our own king of porn, Randy Jorgensen. “It’s certainly coming and we’ll be there.”
Jorgensen is a 28-year veteran of the porn biz, who at one point owned 91 Adults Only Video stores across Canada. He saw the writing on the wall, however, and sold off all but 10 locations. Now his resources are focused on the six adult content digital TV channels he’s running on Rogers and Cogeco, with other deals in the works.
Jorgensen said mobile content has already done what legislators and city bylaws failed to do to porn stores — put them out of business.
“The storefront retail market is dying or dead, as content is available by digital streaming. We’re in talks with carriers and we have a library of material ready.”
For now, however, mobile TV in Canada as offered by the big three carriers is a selection of jerky 15-frames-per-second images and a limited selection of news, entertainment, weather and sports.
It’s a novelty at $15 to $25 a month, but proponents have high hopes. European studies of mobile TV watchers suggest they’re a captive audience, watching while commuting or at work because they can’t get to a regular TV.
Still, newer 3G networks promise full-motion video at 30 frames per second, and with up to 50 channels possible, some analysts suggest mobile could be the “third screen” — after TV and the computer — to reach mass audiences.
They also suggest rush hour could be the new prime time.
Paying For It
Canadians today can already use porn star Jenna Jameson’s screams or pillow talk as ring tones. Downloading the sound file to a phone is as simple as clicking on the site and paying for the ring tone file and also for the carrier’s bandwidth.
It is those extra carrier data charges, Jorgensen said, which are holding back the market in Canada, as consumers are reluctant to fork over the additional fees.
European carriers have already changed their business models, said X obile’s Herman.
“They’ve moved away from providing content,” he said. “They’re just no good at selling it. Carriers have only nine per cent of the ring-tone market.”
Instead, carriers have become network providers, taking a slice of the transaction.
“It turns your mobile into a credit card or a wallet,” Herman said. “The charge just shows up on your monthly phone bill just like your credit card.” It also opens up a defence of plausible denial, meaning carriers can’t be held liable should the content fall into the wrong hands, in the same way the phone company isn’t liable for an obscene or harassing phone call.
The demand for triple-X content seems insatiable. Cherrysauce.com’s Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) site offers games in which players can create an ideal woman, pursue a mysterious seductress, play strip poker, assemble photo jigsaw puzzles of naked women or even play the venerable old game Leisure Suit Larry on their mobile.
There’s even a strip Brad game — sorry, not that Brad.
Nothing New
Why this huge mobile industry? We just can’t help it. Humans have a history of using technology to serve primal passions.
Jacques Daguerre introduced the forerunner of photography in 1839. The daguerreotype was a solid plate onto which an image was burned. It required long exposure times and produced crude images, yet it took less than a year before some entrepreneurs were using the technology to create sexually explicit pictures.
And early home appliances made possible by the mass distribution of electricity included the vibrator. The cellphone, incidentally, has also assumed that role: Vibelet’s Purring Kitty is a downloadable Java script which allows users to control the vibrating function of their cellphones.
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of mobile phones is processor power. The chips in today’s mobiles match the performance of early desktops with the added bonus of being more power efficient. The result is a formidable multimedia platform — just like the PC.
If the Internet is the sum of all media — encompassing audio, moving and still images, textual and graphic formats — then the mobile puts that power into the palm of your hand.
Innovations like building video and still cameras into a mobile phone were originally thought of as a fun thing. Mobile blogging, for instance, started as sharing pics on the go.
For some, however, it’s become an interactive way to post sexual exploits on Web sites like Voooyeur.com.
But if posting images on the Web isn’t your thing, what do you do with those moments after you’ve captured them? L eaving them in the phone can be an issue. Earlier this year G reek police busted an Athens mobile-phone dealership after receiving complaints it was selling amateur sex videos and photographs downloaded from mobiles brought in for repair.
Apparently, some of the people captured on the camera were local celebrities.
Malaysia is having none of that funny stuff. Police there have been told to conduct random searches of mobile phones to check for porn, the New Straits Times reported. Despite penalties of up to five years in jail and US $17,000 fines, reports of teenagers shooting clips of themselves at “wild sex parties” and distributing them to friends are plentiful.
And of course, if there’s a way to make money at it, the world’s oldest profession won’t be far behind. Japanese schoolgirl hookers have already figured it out. Known as the puchi-ied, they set up what is euphemisticallycalled “compensated dates” with men twice their age using their videodisplay phones to screen customers. Hong Kong prostitutes use text and voice spam to advertise their services, according to the South China Morning Post. Meanwhile,
tech-savvy Hong Kong pimps are sending lurid images of prostitutes to potential clients over their mobiles.
Such exhibitionism has an even darker side. Take Australian John Kristy Parker, 50, who used his mobile to send lurid clips of himself to 100 women across the country, then followed up with a phone call to ask “if they had enjoyed the show.” It’s the kind of perversity which has led to the banning of camera-equipped phones from hockey arenas and swimming pools.
The ubiquitous nature of the mobile has made it the go-everywhere, do-everything device we carry with us while we work, rest and play. That we’re using it to explore and push the boundaries of sexuality should be no surprise.
Why did large numbers of people buy their first VCR? Here’s a hint: it wasn’t for Disney movies.
Just as the porn industry pushed video players into many homes, the demand for smut also drove the growth of the Internet. And so it continues today: screaming ecstasy ring tones, hooker solicitations, explicit pictures and movie clips from both commercial porn houses and the folks next door are creating a multi-billion-dollar market for the mobile phone.
Mike Herman is channel manager for Xobile, a subsidiary of Internet porn giant Adult Entertainment Broadcast Network (AEBN) in North Carolina. Xobile provides about 75 per cent of the adult content on the ’net. He said the exponential growth of mobile porn will dwarf the growth rate we’ve already seen on the Internet.
U.K.-based Juniper Research estimated the mobile sex market globally was worth about US $500 million in 2004 and that it will climb to US $2 billion by 2009.
Unlike the ’net, which suffered the birthing pains of poor video compression and molasses-like speeds back before broadband replaced 14Kpbs dial-up, mobile’s infrastructure is already in place and the content digitalized, said Herman.
“Viewing porn online grew 1,800 per cent from 1998 to 2003. In 2004, about 75 per cent of paid content on the Internet was porn,” Herman said. “For mobile, the content is there and the speed is already there.”
Xobile president Harvey Kaplan said the only thing holding back the North American mobile market is a lack of both compatible handsets and widespread deployment of faster 3G networks.
But he said the appetite for adult content will drive the uptake of 3G among consumers, noting Xobile has more than 5,000 two-minute clips optimized for tiny mobile screens and the rights to another 41,000 titles. S ome 30 per cent of its business is from North America, with the balance spread between Europe and Asia.
“No one seems to mind that the screen is so small,” Kaplan said. “It’s that it’s a private thing they can take with them anywhere, even at family gatherings.”
Canada Behind
AEBN already clears US $3.2 million a month from 100 million terabytes of Video-On-Demand downloads, and K aplan is taking it one step further by launching two hardcore Mobile TV channels with 24/7 broadcasts in January.
In Canada, however, we’re not there yet, said our own king of porn, Randy Jorgensen. “It’s certainly coming and we’ll be there.”
Jorgensen is a 28-year veteran of the porn biz, who at one point owned 91 Adults Only Video stores across Canada. He saw the writing on the wall, however, and sold off all but 10 locations. Now his resources are focused on the six adult content digital TV channels he’s running on Rogers and Cogeco, with other deals in the works.
Jorgensen said mobile content has already done what legislators and city bylaws failed to do to porn stores — put them out of business.
“The storefront retail market is dying or dead, as content is available by digital streaming. We’re in talks with carriers and we have a library of material ready.”
For now, however, mobile TV in Canada as offered by the big three carriers is a selection of jerky 15-frames-per-second images and a limited selection of news, entertainment, weather and sports.
It’s a novelty at $15 to $25 a month, but proponents have high hopes. European studies of mobile TV watchers suggest they’re a captive audience, watching while commuting or at work because they can’t get to a regular TV.
Still, newer 3G networks promise full-motion video at 30 frames per second, and with up to 50 channels possible, some analysts suggest mobile could be the “third screen” — after TV and the computer — to reach mass audiences.
They also suggest rush hour could be the new prime time.
Paying For It
Canadians today can already use porn star Jenna Jameson’s screams or pillow talk as ring tones. Downloading the sound file to a phone is as simple as clicking on the site and paying for the ring tone file and also for the carrier’s bandwidth.
It is those extra carrier data charges, Jorgensen said, which are holding back the market in Canada, as consumers are reluctant to fork over the additional fees.
European carriers have already changed their business models, said X obile’s Herman.
“They’ve moved away from providing content,” he said. “They’re just no good at selling it. Carriers have only nine per cent of the ring-tone market.”
Instead, carriers have become network providers, taking a slice of the transaction.
“It turns your mobile into a credit card or a wallet,” Herman said. “The charge just shows up on your monthly phone bill just like your credit card.” It also opens up a defence of plausible denial, meaning carriers can’t be held liable should the content fall into the wrong hands, in the same way the phone company isn’t liable for an obscene or harassing phone call.
The demand for triple-X content seems insatiable. Cherrysauce.com’s Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) site offers games in which players can create an ideal woman, pursue a mysterious seductress, play strip poker, assemble photo jigsaw puzzles of naked women or even play the venerable old game Leisure Suit Larry on their mobile.
There’s even a strip Brad game — sorry, not that Brad.
Nothing New
Why this huge mobile industry? We just can’t help it. Humans have a history of using technology to serve primal passions.
Jacques Daguerre introduced the forerunner of photography in 1839. The daguerreotype was a solid plate onto which an image was burned. It required long exposure times and produced crude images, yet it took less than a year before some entrepreneurs were using the technology to create sexually explicit pictures.
And early home appliances made possible by the mass distribution of electricity included the vibrator. The cellphone, incidentally, has also assumed that role: Vibelet’s Purring Kitty is a downloadable Java script which allows users to control the vibrating function of their cellphones.
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of mobile phones is processor power. The chips in today’s mobiles match the performance of early desktops with the added bonus of being more power efficient. The result is a formidable multimedia platform — just like the PC.
If the Internet is the sum of all media — encompassing audio, moving and still images, textual and graphic formats — then the mobile puts that power into the palm of your hand.
Innovations like building video and still cameras into a mobile phone were originally thought of as a fun thing. Mobile blogging, for instance, started as sharing pics on the go.
For some, however, it’s become an interactive way to post sexual exploits on Web sites like Voooyeur.com.
But if posting images on the Web isn’t your thing, what do you do with those moments after you’ve captured them? L eaving them in the phone can be an issue. Earlier this year G reek police busted an Athens mobile-phone dealership after receiving complaints it was selling amateur sex videos and photographs downloaded from mobiles brought in for repair.
Apparently, some of the people captured on the camera were local celebrities.
Malaysia is having none of that funny stuff. Police there have been told to conduct random searches of mobile phones to check for porn, the New Straits Times reported. Despite penalties of up to five years in jail and US $17,000 fines, reports of teenagers shooting clips of themselves at “wild sex parties” and distributing them to friends are plentiful.
And of course, if there’s a way to make money at it, the world’s oldest profession won’t be far behind. Japanese schoolgirl hookers have already figured it out. Known as the puchi-ied, they set up what is euphemisticallycalled “compensated dates” with men twice their age using their videodisplay phones to screen customers. Hong Kong prostitutes use text and voice spam to advertise their services, according to the South China Morning Post. Meanwhile,
tech-savvy Hong Kong pimps are sending lurid images of prostitutes to potential clients over their mobiles.
Such exhibitionism has an even darker side. Take Australian John Kristy Parker, 50, who used his mobile to send lurid clips of himself to 100 women across the country, then followed up with a phone call to ask “if they had enjoyed the show.” It’s the kind of perversity which has led to the banning of camera-equipped phones from hockey arenas and swimming pools.
The ubiquitous nature of the mobile has made it the go-everywhere, do-everything device we carry with us while we work, rest and play. That we’re using it to explore and push the boundaries of sexuality should be no surprise.
