The next frontier for iPhone porn is social, location-based and app-oriented, according to adult producers.
LAS VEGAS—The day after Christmas, when millions of Americans unwrapped their new smartphones, the mobile Web site for porn producers, Pink Visual, saw a 40-percent spike in traffic. It’s obvious that Americans are searching for porn on their phones. At the AVN trade show today, adult content producers said that the next frontier is apps—whether or not companies like Apple are ready for them.
Wireless carriers in the U.S. are very interested in selling adult content, but they need to figure out how to do it without making their stockholders panic, said Farley Cahen, vice president for new media at adult publishing house Digital Playground.
“The carriers are willing and anxious to take adult content on-deck and off-deck on their networks,” he said.
So carriers (secretly) want porn and consumers (apparently) want porn. Most porn houses currently have successful mobile Web sites. Taking the next step to apps enables rich experiences that you just can’t get through a mobile Web site.
For instance, image- and video-based apps could include chapter stops or accelerometer-based shake-to-navigate abilities, said Jesse Adams, president of alternative Android app store MiKandi. App stores could sell adults-only games like the popular Japanese “hentai” lines, or enable social and location-based experiences like strip-club finders.
“The convenience of an app is so much better than that of a mobile site,” Adams said.
The Anti-App Stores
But app approval processes stand in the way. Apple, for instance, eschews anything with too much of a scent of sex.
That’s opened opportunities for both MiKandi, which works on Android phones and is soon coming to BlackBerrys and Palm phones, and the Sex App Shop for the iPhone. The Sex App Shop is an alternative iPhone app store based on HTML5-esque technology that works around the official Apple app store without requiring hacking or jailbreaking.
“We’ve had two million downloads from the Sex App Shop in the past month,” said Sex App Shop president Maria Gara.
Major, big-name porn is still missing from both the Sex App Shop and MiKandi. Both firms said they’re in negotiations with big producers they wouldn’t name.
Kim Kysar, brand manager for mid-sized porn producer Pink Visual, said they’re creating their own iPhone apps using technology similar to the Sex App Shop’s, which they’ll distribute independently, and that they’d be interested in discussing working with sex-oriented alternative app stores.
But Digital Playground’s Cahen said he sees plenty of profit in working through Apple’s App Store rather than alternative channels. Digital Playground is one of the top adult publishers in the world, with name-brand stars like Jesse Jane and a reputation for mounting spectacular, expensive films with top-notch production values.
“We feel a non-sexual, cheeky kind of app could get approved,” Cahen said.
Rather than just delivering porn, apps can deliver social, personal, or connected content that might be able to make it through Apple’s App Store approval process, Cahen said. For instance, an app may bring you personalized messages from a porn star, tie together porn stars’ Facebook and Twitter updates, or tell you when they’re signing photos in your town, he said.
“We want to be using the next level of interactivity that we feel will maximize the iPhone in particular’s functionality,” he said.
Pete Housley, CEO of PornstarTweet, says mobile users may be too scared to leave the confines of carrier and phone-branded application stores.
“The general opinion is porn means spam means advertising,” he said. “People want safe, officially-branded stuff.”
But that fear just hasn’t played out in the overwhelming demand Gara has seen for the Sex App Shop, she said.
“It’s been so crazy,” she says.
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