Porn's bold new frontier: Tablets, not 3D

Players in the pornography industry believe their future is not in 3D but in tablets, smartphones and mobile devices, a survey by an adult industry trade magazine showed —even as a sex toy iPad attachment is reportedly already in the works.

 

Tech site PC Magazine said the survey by Xbiz, an adult industry trade magazine, interviewed "stakeholders" although it did not say how many responded.

 

"Over the next two years, I'd say that desktops/laptops will remain the primary porn viewing platform. Out more than five years, however, I predict that tablets and mobile devices will become the dominant platform," PC Mag quoted Colin Rowntree, the owner of Wasteland, as saying.

 

The porn industry is considered "progressive" in terms of technology - it adopted VHS cassettes, moved to the Internet, and tried 3D technology.

 

PC Mag said the stakeholders in the survey included adult site operators, distributors, software providers, and ad networks, as well as the performers themselves.

 

Its topics included 3D, .XXX domains, mobile viewing, and the rise of free porn, as well as non-tech related issues such as the mandatory use of condoms.

 

The PC Mag article said the survey found just under 44 percent of those surveyed thought that smartphones and tablets would overtake PCs as the primary medium for viewing porn.

 

It added an additional 17.7 percent thought that Internet-enabled TVs and devices would become the primary porn medium.

 

Rowntree noted porn viewing is "sort of a solitary activity and most people have wives, girlfriends, children and other people in the house to contend with."

 

"What is really going to take off when there is sufficient market saturation are tablets, because they are cheaper than laptops and you can take them to bed with you," he said.

 

Industry shuns .xxx domain, 3D

 

PC Mag said the survey also found more than half of those surveyed do not plan to buy or use a .XXX domain for their content.

 

On 3D, 52 percent of those surveyed said that they agreed with the statement, "There will be limited consumer demand; select producers will profit."

 

Twenty-nine percent said there would be no demand for 3D content, and just 19 percent thought it "would usher in great profits for the industry."

 

PC Mag noted concerns about the viability of 3D movies surfaced as early as 2010, while two adult film titans quoted by the study put its future in doubt.

 

"No more than the 1960s when it became the phenomenon of cinema," Larry Flynt, president of Larry Flint Publications, said, when asked about the future of 3D. "I don't think there'll be a great future for it."

 

"It seems that 3D is certainly not there yet," added Steven Hirsch, the founder of Vivid Entertainment. "This could change quickly when glasses-free 3D televisions finally make their way into the marketplace. Unfortunately, this won't happen overnight and until then it's really a non-starter."

 

As for .xxx domains, which the Internet Center for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved in March 2011, industry players protested as they claimed the new domain was merely a shakedown effort to secure more money.

 

In the survey, PC Mag said majority of those surveyed said they had no plans to register an .XXX domain: 35 percent out of principle, and an additional 17 percent because of a lack of value.

 

Another 22 percent said they planned to buy an .XXX domain to protect a trademark, a practice that other industries, including universities, have employed.

 

"I do not see the value and I do not support .XXX," said Michael Klein, the president of Hustler, as quoted in the study. "We have been very vocal in our feelings about .XXX, which we feel all it does is cause an unnecessary financial burden to adult companies having to register all their domains under .XXX at ridiculously high prices whereas there there is no value as consumers can easily find what they want at any .com site."

 

But Steven Gallon, chief executive of Grooby Productions, said that he snapped up Ladyboy.xxx to develop a new, prominent transsexual site for the Asian market.

 

Concern over 'tube' piracy

 

While piracy has caused concern in the industry, the real problem has been the "tube" sites that operate similar to YouTube - where adults can film themselves and their friends, and post it to the Internet for free.

 

PC Mag said the survey found such a blurring of professional and amateur adult content as the most significant issue facing the porn industry - 44.2 percent.

 

Tied for second were economic instability and piracy.

 

Thirty-eight percent said the industry should prosecute pirates, and an additional third said that should include end users. Only 29 percent felt that suits were ineffective.

 

"I believe three of the results are actually one in the same problem: availability of free porn, market saturation and piracy," said Brad Mitchell, president of MojoHost.

 

FleshliPad sex toy

 

Meanwhile, in an earlier report, the makers of the famous Fleshlight sex toy have reportedly been fleshing out a concept holder that can turn the iPad into an intimate companion.

 

"It's another exciting product we have in development at the moment. We are always looking to improve our user experience and this will be a way to take it to another level," Fleshlight COO Brian Shubin was quoted as saying.

 

An article on tvmiller.com said the FleshliPad holder melds the Fleshlight device to a rubber housing for the iPad, or alternative tablet.

 

It said this would allow the "cumsumer" to "interactively reach self-gratification with various pre-recorded multimedia (photograph, video or animation) designed specifically for the tablet-penis interface." — TJD, GMA News