Mobile porn
Mobile porn also marketed under search terms such as Cellphone porn, Cell porn and iPhone porn, is pornography distributed by mobile devices such as the Sony PlayStation Portable, IPod, and mobile phones.[1]
The mobile porn business expects to grow to a $2.3 billion market value by 2010.[2]
North America
Widespread adoption of Apple's iPhone may encourage growth in the mobile porn industry in North America[3]. Since the release of the original iPhone in the summer of 2007 the search term "iPhone Porn" has spiked in popularity. Because 37% of iPhone users watch video on their iPhone[4] and 67% of US iPhone users are male[4]. Other companies in the mobile and video industries are situating themselves to take advantage of this trend. Google is building a new phone system that the company claims will support any application, presumably including porn, while YouTube is in negotiations to offer free softcore porn content for free on 100 million advanced cell phones. [5]
The North American Cell Porn market differs from Europe in that carriers are not allowing adult sites to use their billing mechanisms such as billing via premium SMS, slowing market growth.[citation needed] There are sites specifically geared towards iPhone customers and do not allow the site to be viewed by non-mobile browsers. Other business models involve offering free videos in the 'tube' style of websites. For the cost of viewing an ad, users can get free video clips. Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corporation announced in early 2008 that they plan to allow some adult content to be viewed on their networks, while working to prevent access to this content by children. There have been expectations for some time that these companies will overcome age-verification, political, and religious challenges that have become a barrier to this market, to take advantage of the resulting increase in mobile web-surfing on their networks.[5]
Recently, many North America based mobile porn sites previously optimized for only the iPhone, have tweaked their site design to take advantage of any webkit based browser on a mobile device. Phones such as the Palm Pre or phones running on Google Android are examples of this type. Numerous third party mobile porn app stores have been released on Android to exploit the growing market.
Criticisms
There has been some criticism regarding mobile porn, with children possibly being exposed to the inappropriate and unregulated content.[6][7] Network operators have implemented age verification systems though, which demand customers who want to buy porn through their phone to be a verified adult first.
Sony, the company which created the PSP, say they are unhappy with the spread of PSP porn, but claim to be unable to stop its spread.[8]
References
- ^ Lynn, Regina (2004-10-29). "Porn Is Going Mobile". Wired.
- ^ Ryan, Emmet (2006-11-28). "Mobile porn market set to explode". The Register.
- ^ Caplan, Jeremy (2008-06-18). "The iPhone's Next Frontier: Porn". Time magazine.
- ^ a b "Nielsen Provides iPhone Statistics" (Press release). The Nielsen Company. 2008-07-15. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
- ^ a b Carew, Sinead (2008-01-30). "Porn to spice up cell phones". Reuters. Retrieved 2008-08-26.
- ^ "Children 'can access mobile porn". BBC News. BBC. 2006-02-02.
- ^ Rafferty, Tom (2006-04-25). "Boy cited for taking porn to school". Bismarck Tribune. Lee Enterprises.
- ^ Thomson, Iain (2005-06-20). "Sony unhappy over PSP porn". vnunet. Incisive Media.
External links
- Cams sex chat
- "CTIA-The Wireless Organization Content Guidelines"
- "Mobile porn is a $1 bln industry in 2005", ZDNet, December 13, 2005
- "Strategy Analytics ups mobile porn forecast to $5 bln by 2010" ZDNet, March 17, 2005
- Best, Jo (2006-11-28). "Cell phone porn to ring up $3.3 billion". ZDNet News. CNET Networks.