Porn turns lustful eye to wireless look

Porn Valley- Few industries have a better track record for using technology to reach consumers than the one that employs Steven Hirsch [pictured].

Through the Internet, DVDs and VCRs, Hirsch and his brethren were there first, profitably churning out products.

Now his industry, pornography, is targeting the next technological frontier: the mobile phone.

"There is a lot of business to be done," said Hirsch, the co-founder of adult filmmaker Vivid Entertainment.

Hirsch plans later this year to launch a new mobile product he expects will sell particularly well: VividNow, which will offer live sex chats with porn stars, their images beamed onto a phone's video screen.

The mobile adult video market is small now. But many major phone companies in Europe already are selling sexual content. It would seem to be a natural seller in America too, except for one major difference: The U.S. is more conservative culturally, with stronger lobbies against pornography and indecency.

And so there is a quiet battle being played out between pornographers and opponents, with American wireless carriers positioned in the middle between a potentially lucrative business and the risk to their images by abetting in the distribution of adult content.

It's an even trickier situation than the one facing major cable television firms that offer sex channels because porn-on-the-go brings up the specter of inadvertent public exposure to sexual videos--such as when someone chooses to watch such a video on a bus.

It also is potentially much easier for children to access than on a personal computer because phones are so portable, said Charmaine Yoest, a vice president at the Family Research Council, which promotes traditional family and Judeo-Christian values.

"We're able to monitor what [children] do on computers in our houses," she said.

Nonetheless, mobile videos will be important for the pornography industry, said Jonathan Coopersmith, who has studied the ties between adult entertainment and technology. "The question is how important."

A historian at Texas A&M University, Coopersmith said that if not for its subject matter, the porn business would be praised for quickly developing and diffusing technical know-how.

Consumers of pornography tend to be early adopters of new technology, and they've helped popularize videocassette recorders, DVD players, camcorders and, of course, the Internet, he said. On the Internet, in particular, adult sites have been leaders in providing state-of-the-art features.

The Internet has become a major distribution channel for California-based Vivid, which makes about 70 movies a year.

Five years ago, 90 percent of Vivid's content was distributed on DVDs. Now, less than 40 percent travels that route, while 30 percent is sold online. Cable and satellite television are also major distribution channels.

Phones are a relatively small piece of business, but Vivid's Hirsch sees "tremendous growth" in mobile.

The economics are favorable: Vivid Entertainment can tailor video for phones with little additional cost. Mobile video looks best when cameras are positioned for the small screen; close-ups taken with a wide-angle lens reduce any claustrophobic effect, Hirsch said.

So, after a full-length movie is shot, Vivid can keep its actors on the set and reposition its cameras to shoot a phone video.

So far, Vivid has made three videos specifically for phones. It also offers mobile TV for phones, and monthly subscribers to Vivid's Web site can get downloads for the new video-enabled iPods.

Then there are erotic mobile-phone games. For example, Vivid's "EroTrix" games are sold in Germany, Greece and Portugal through Vodafone, a wireless carrier in London.

Vodafone declined to break out sales figures for the game, which involves uncovering a picture of a Vivid film star. But Tina Southall, Vodafone's director of community standards, said EroTrix has proved "quite popular."

Several major mobile-phone networks in Europe offer "on-deck" adult content, meaning customers can buy racy video or pictures directly and have the transactions appear on their wireless bills.

The explicitness varies by country. The United Kingdom tends to be more conservative; operators show nudity and some sexual content. Vodafone offers nudity throughout Europe, but no physical contact, Southall said.

Some of Vodaphone's competitors in Europe offer more graphic content. "We know our customers would like to have more explicit content than we are offering," she said.

In the United States, mobile-phone users don't need wireless carriers to buy pornography. They can go "off deck"--that is, go outside of a wireless carrier's Web store--where there is a growing number of sex video sites on the Internet tailored for the device.

Harvey Kaplan runs one such site. Through Xobile, he sells hard-core video snippets at 44 cents apiece for two minutes. Most of his 75,000 customers buy three to five clips at a time.

Kaplan also runs Adult Entertainment Broadcast Network, a 7-year-old company that sells full-length movies by the minute on the Internet.

He reformats his 50,000 Internet videos for mobile phones.

"We are taking the exact same content and putting it in two-minute clips so it is easily digestible on the cell phone," Kaplan said.

Videos can be downloaded to a personal computer or by accessing the Xobile site on a mobile phone.

In Europe, the billing is done via credit card or through phone companies. Even though Xobile is "off deck" content for those carriers--they don't distribute it--they do get a fee for providing billing.

In the United States, Xobile's customers must pay with credit cards; carriers have refused even to bill for off-deck adult content.

While carriers aren't necessary to sell pornography on the mobile phone, experts said they have the power to give it a boost.

First, carrier participation would broaden the industry's distribution channel--just like cable TV has. Second, it would make mobile adult content more accessible: Currently, it's not always easy to go "off-deck" on a wireless phone and browse the Internet.

Third, carrier involvement simplifies payment because pornographic purchases could be included in a customer's phone bill.

"The evidence is that content only becomes mainstream when it is easy to access and easy to bill," said Anil Malhotra, co-founder of Bango, a London-based firm that processes payments made via mobile phones.

U.S. wireless companies might be tempted: After all, by distributing adult content, they could boost their revenues.

CTIA-The Wireless Association, the U.S. wireless industry trade group, recently adopted guidelines to keep minors from accessing unsuitable content.

But U.S. carriers have given no indication they will follow suit. "We do not offer pornographic content nor do we plan to offer pornographic or obscene content," said Mark Siegel, a spokesman for Cingular Wireless, the nation's biggest wireless carrier.

Cingular recently became the first U.S. carrier to implement parental controls, including a filter that keeps the phone user in its Internet realm, restricting access to the broader Web.

Some observers say they don't think major U.S. carriers will follow the lead of overseas operators because it's too risky.

Wireless carriers generally provide more control over their content than an Internet service provider, said Roger Entner, a wireless industry analyst at Ovum, a tech research firm.

"They are not going to jeopardize their main business by getting excited by adult entertainment, he said.

Some anti-porn groups are watching the carriers closely.

"We have [mobile porn] very much on our radar," said Yoest of the Family Research Council. "We are appealing to carriers and asking them to align themselves with parents or pornographers. They have a choice to make."