What's Wrong With A Little Exaggerating The Size Of The Mobile Porn Market?

from the size-does-matter dept

Fri, Feb 1st 2008 1:20am — Mike Masnick

For years and years, we've been hearing analysts talk up the prospects of the mobile porn market with little to no evidence that it's more than a niche market. Almost all of the analyst estimates are based on assumptions concerning how VCR technology and the internet were both driven by huge demand for pornographic content. It's natural to then assume that the mobile industry will go down the same path. However, that ignores why VCRs and the internet worked well for adult entertainment. Both allowed a better quality offering to be viewed in the privacy of your own home. Mobile porn is the opposite. It's a lower quality product that you can now view out in public. That seems a lot less appealing. So, take it with a pretty large grain of salt when analyst firms insist that mobile porn is about to be a big thing. These are the same firms that have been predicting huge growth for mobile porn for a while, with little to back it up. Yes, there is some market for mobile porn, but it's hard to see it being as big as some of these predictions make it out to be.

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Filed Under: market projections, mobile porn

16 Comments

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ReallyEvilCanine, 1 Feb 2008 @ 1:57am

Mobile pr0n market proportional to screen size
Development of the Intarthingie has been due to pr0n and it seems like everyone is waiting for it to do the same to mobiles. It won't. The last person who jerked to 1/4" wide, 256-colour graphics bought a 15" monitor in 1996. Without at least a 4" screen that has a resolution of at least 800x600, porn ain't comin' to your cell phone.
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Chief Elf (profile), 1 Feb 2008 @ 2:30am

Mobile Porn?
Mobile, Alabama? Why would they want more porn than other cities?
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- proff, 1 Feb 2008 @ 11:59am
  
  Re: Mobile Porn?
  Because they envy the porn market in nearby New Orleans?
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Mark S, 1 Feb 2008 @ 4:30am

screen size and privacy
My take on it is that I agree, it has everything to do with screen size quality for realism (plus privacy as you mention) but you may want to add audio quality being a factor too.

Though the mobile exeprience may still appeal and quite work well enough for (non-porn) dating sites as long as mobile versions are appropriately designd?
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Alimas, 1 Feb 2008 @ 5:10am

Already Seen It
I used to work with a guy at a construction site who had a cellphone he downloaded erotic photos onto a few years ago.
Guy was wall excited about it, liked to show it off.
Personally I thought it was pretty stupid. Picture was larger than the screen, he had to scroll around to look at it.
Not really worth the dollar or so he was paying per picture.
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Danny, 1 Feb 2008 @ 6:14am

Not a big deal
Most porn hounds are tech savvy enough to want the best quality image/video they can get. Add that to privacy and there is no way mobile porn can match the porn you can get at home on pc/dvd/vhs. Yes I said vhs. If your porn offering is less quality and/or privacy than vhs in this day and age mobility is not going mean anything.

This is nothing but an attemmpt to generate buzz where there is none.
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WillKalli, 1 Feb 2008 @ 6:43am

You missed one problem
Mobile porn leaves you with one less hand free. Not good if you only have one hand or you're trying to do anything other than enjoy your porn.
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Feb 2008 @ 7:11am

Surely mobile porn's largest audience is in school kids trying to be all cool in front of their friends.
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shmengie, 1 Feb 2008 @ 7:18am

you never know when you'll be working late in the server room and need a quick distraction...

@chiefelf: lol!
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Feoh, 1 Feb 2008 @ 7:18am

Size does matter. Don't let anyone tell you differently
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johnasaurus, 1 Feb 2008 @ 7:39am

iPorn
I seem to remember some similar hullabaloo about porn on the iPod around Christmas '06. Smelled like a smear campaign to me, probably drummed up to steal some market share. As for cell phones, any phone with a camera can not only be used to view porn, but can be used to make it as well. I think that even with the horrible quality and concerns of the potential lack of privacy (after all, you can look at porn in public on a laptop, or on a cell phone or mp3 player in a room with the door shut), somebody will still make a buck off of this.
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Shane, 1 Feb 2008 @ 8:17am

Lets face it, it is not easy to get on a phone
Since just about all phones in the US gain content and access via their wireless service provider and none of them allow for linking to, selling of, or even ads from adult content/booze/smokes/etc. most folks simply can't get what they are looking to get. Lets face it the stats don't lie, most folks are not searching for Google or Starbucks on their phone, they are searching/browsing/looking for "adult" content, but those searches are scrubbed from data. For every user trying to find Google or a pop-song ringtone, there are 100 to 1000 searching for "adult" stuff.

Now if some device offered a GPS based "hook-up" finder you would see a small surge in usage. Also see how things change as carriers start to lower their walls to content and the web.
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H.264, 1 Feb 2008 @ 12:28pm

With H.264 MPEG4 becoming a non-proprietary supported codec for Flash 9, iPod, iPhone, Zune, XBox, TiVo - were going to see this sector grow at least.

usenetbinaries.com just launched H.264 support (it even plays H.264 in their flash player, which looks great), so, you can download any Usenet video and play it on any of those devices without converting it.
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Greg, 21 Jan 2009 @ 5:00pm

mobile porn / iphone porn
It seems to be a new dawn for mobile porn with the iphone since this article was written. Sites like mobilebabes.com, mobile porn.com and many others are gearing up for this iphone new take up. Will it deliver the hype they all talked about? I guess theres still time?
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Robert, 29 Aug 2009 @ 4:04am

iPhone Porn
There is amazing sites like http://www.pornphone.com that offers free iPhone Porn and also works as a paysite.
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Mobileporn Website, 2 Sep 2009 @ 9:48am

Click here for porn
You can take the phone/iphone with you in the bathroom and masturbate when you don't have any other place. Magazines, computers and TVs are not good for that.
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