Trendsurfing: P()rncasting (The Times)
By David Rowan
You didn't really think the new video iPod was designed for watching Lost and Desperate Housewives, did you? The "aduIt entertainment" industry has more lascivious ambitions for it. A 260,000-colour screen, space for 150 hours of video, pay-to-download facilities wherever you are ... why, this baby's starting to look like the ultimate medium for delivering p()rnography.
A year ago, this column reported on a new media trend known as "podcasting". Thanks to a clever piece of software partly developed by former MTV video-jockey Adam Curry, anyone with an iPod or other MP3 player could download audio clips placed online by anyone else. At the time, there were just a few dozen amateur "podcasts" online. Since then, every global corporation and garage hobbyist has been playing talk-show host to the world. So impressed was Apple that it rewrote its iTunes software to incorporate a podcast search facility.
And then the aduIt entertainment industry arrived. For months, one of the medium's fastest growth areas has been the "p()rncast", the ultra-low-budget audio podcast that titillates listeners with se xuaI confessions, sultry film reviews and er()tic stories. With names like Open Source S ex and Gay S excapades, these shows have been attracting predictably strong audiences: a recent survey by Digital Podcast, which runs a programme directory, suggested that although "er()tica" makes up less than 1 per cent of its listings, the category attracts 11.3 per cent of all visits.
Without pictures, though, the cash-generating possibilities have proved limited. With the video iPod, the purveyors of aduIt entertainment claim to have found their money shot. The device was launched only last month, but already the big boys are repackaging their wares as "iPod p()rn". AduIt websites from Suicide GirIs to the feti sh site HeIIHouse Dungeon have reconfigured video content as iPod downloads. Another site, which specialises in footage filmed from the male p()rn star's viewpoint, even advises customers to hold their loaded iPod at waist level "to feel like you're there!".
Apple may not approve, but even without the company's support, you can guarantee that the aduIt entertainment industry will find profitable routes through which to market p()rncasts and er()tica to a mainstream audience. After all, this is the industry whose relentless search for new revenue streams boosted emerging technologies from the daguerreotype to VHS. If you ever use the web to shop or watch streaming video, you have the p()rn pioneers to thank for getting there first.
"P()rn is just going to be huge," Adam Curry predicted on an edition of his own podcast last month. Since the video iPod opened up a vast potential new market, "The p()rn guys are just going, 'Holy moly'!" There are no indications yet as to how this content will be kept from children, but give it a month or two before questions are tabled in Parliament. In the meantime, the buzz has already spawned a terrific parody site promoting the apocryphal iPod Er()tica (at www.kryptonitestudios.com/ipod). This se xy, pink all-vibrating model is designed for watching "everything from a Ies bian dance-off to your kinkiest fantasy". Best of all, it releases "er()tic aromas" to add to the mood. At least, we think it's a parody. Isn't it?
(The Times Magazine, November 5 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE TRENDSURFING COLUMNS HERE . . .
You didn't really think the new video iPod was designed for watching Lost and Desperate Housewives, did you? The "aduIt entertainment" industry has more lascivious ambitions for it. A 260,000-colour screen, space for 150 hours of video, pay-to-download facilities wherever you are ... why, this baby's starting to look like the ultimate medium for delivering p()rnography.
A year ago, this column reported on a new media trend known as "podcasting". Thanks to a clever piece of software partly developed by former MTV video-jockey Adam Curry, anyone with an iPod or other MP3 player could download audio clips placed online by anyone else. At the time, there were just a few dozen amateur "podcasts" online. Since then, every global corporation and garage hobbyist has been playing talk-show host to the world. So impressed was Apple that it rewrote its iTunes software to incorporate a podcast search facility.
And then the aduIt entertainment industry arrived. For months, one of the medium's fastest growth areas has been the "p()rncast", the ultra-low-budget audio podcast that titillates listeners with se xuaI confessions, sultry film reviews and er()tic stories. With names like Open Source S ex and Gay S excapades, these shows have been attracting predictably strong audiences: a recent survey by Digital Podcast, which runs a programme directory, suggested that although "er()tica" makes up less than 1 per cent of its listings, the category attracts 11.3 per cent of all visits.
Without pictures, though, the cash-generating possibilities have proved limited. With the video iPod, the purveyors of aduIt entertainment claim to have found their money shot. The device was launched only last month, but already the big boys are repackaging their wares as "iPod p()rn". AduIt websites from Suicide GirIs to the feti sh site HeIIHouse Dungeon have reconfigured video content as iPod downloads. Another site, which specialises in footage filmed from the male p()rn star's viewpoint, even advises customers to hold their loaded iPod at waist level "to feel like you're there!".
Apple may not approve, but even without the company's support, you can guarantee that the aduIt entertainment industry will find profitable routes through which to market p()rncasts and er()tica to a mainstream audience. After all, this is the industry whose relentless search for new revenue streams boosted emerging technologies from the daguerreotype to VHS. If you ever use the web to shop or watch streaming video, you have the p()rn pioneers to thank for getting there first.
"P()rn is just going to be huge," Adam Curry predicted on an edition of his own podcast last month. Since the video iPod opened up a vast potential new market, "The p()rn guys are just going, 'Holy moly'!" There are no indications yet as to how this content will be kept from children, but give it a month or two before questions are tabled in Parliament. In the meantime, the buzz has already spawned a terrific parody site promoting the apocryphal iPod Er()tica (at www.kryptonitestudios.com/ipod). This se xy, pink all-vibrating model is designed for watching "everything from a Ies bian dance-off to your kinkiest fantasy". Best of all, it releases "er()tic aromas" to add to the mood. At least, we think it's a parody. Isn't it?
(The Times Magazine, November 5 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE TRENDSURFING COLUMNS HERE . . .
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