Pornography is going mobile.
That means the increased possibility of erotic, adult content anytime, anywhere.
The $10 billion adult entertainment industry has all but conquered the world of magazines, home movies and the Internet. Now, telecommunications experts say it’s coming soon to a wireless phone near you.
Already popular in Asia and Europe, wireless adult content could generate $1 billion to $6.5 billion in revenue within the next few years, say experts who predict that it will soon invade the U.S. market, as new technology hitting the States makes it possible for people to swap pictures, browse the Web, send instant messages and stream video all on one phone.
“It’s going to be a big thing,” said telecom analyst Alan Reiter of Wireless Internet and Mobile Computing. “This is not a surprise. It’s been coming for years. Although cellular operators generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, they’re still looking for profits. Pornography is seen as a potential profit maker. It’s not something any carrier really wants to do, but they may feel it would be justified because of the revenue stream it offers.”
Pornography has long been the accelerator behind the adoption of many new technologies, such as cable television, the videocassette recorder, DVDs and the Internet. Experts say adult content also could drive people toward buying new “smart” phones, known as third-generation, or 3G phones, such as the Nokia 6620 and the Sanyo VM4500 video phones.
Wireless data–which includes text messaging, ring tones and anything else that’s available on cell phones besides voice messages–makes up less than 3 percent of the industry’s annual $81 billion revenue, according to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association. But industry experts say the importance of wireless content is growing.
“I call it sex in the palm of your hand,” said Jack Samad, senior vice president of the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families in Cincinnati, who tracks new technologies for the anti-porn group. “We see wireless porn as an alarming issue, and we see the trend mostly hitting the younger generation.”
The alluring profit to be made off wireless pornography is hard to ignore. Strategy Analytics, a Massachusetts research and consulting firm, predicted that wireless porn will generate $1 billion in 2008. Other estimates show that mobile adult content could generate revenue of about $791 million by 2006, according to Britain-based Juniper Research in a study released in December.
“I think mobile phones will be the next medium that adult content will conquer,” said Adi McAbian, managing director of WAAT Media in California, a telecom firm that offers adult content to European cellular subscribers.
U.S. carriers say they have no plans to offer adult content to subscribers, but they also do not prevent subscribers from linking to adult content sites.
“We have an open infrastructure that allows customers to access any type of information they want, but we certainly don’t advocate or endorse that type of content,” said Dan Wilinsky, a Sprint spokesman. “We don’t have any plans to offer that content, but we are studying potential parental controls for our phones.”
But will the temptation of profits sway carriers?
“Cellular operators are pondering the issue of adult content, but they certainly don’t want to publicize that,” Reiter said. “No one really wants to be the first carrier to offer that kind of content on their private network.”
Even those who are counting on its success have doubts that pornography will ever conquer the wireless world like it has the Internet.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and alBerto Trevino (atrevino@tribune.com)
