Adult entertainment powerhouse Pink Visual saw visits to its mobile video service soar after Christmas as people turned on new iPhones and tapped into porn.
Sex video makers and distributors are evolving with the technology times, catering to customers seeking satisfaction on smartphones, Blu-ray players and Internet television.
Digital Playground, which is credited with producing the first high-definition adult film five years ago, has a Web site devoted exclusively to Apple’s hot iPhones and offers free trailer “podcasts” for iPods.
CHANGING TACTICS
“The way people get their porn is changing,” Pink distribution operations manager Kim Kysar said as an annual Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas on Sunday. “It is going to be more personal and you get it anywhere you are: on the road, in the bathroom at work taking a break. Nobody is going to be the wiser.”
The number of visitors to Pink Web sites customized for mobile devices has rocketed for the past six months and 40 percent of the visitors become subscription-paying members.
“We saw a peak after Christmas when everybody got new video phones,” Kysar said. “One of the first things people do after activating their iPhones is Google ‘iPhone porn’ and here they are.”
Pink began as an Internet-based business so its videos are already broken into short clips for quick downloading.
“You can basically jump to the part you want to see,” Kysar said of presenting video in YouTube-style short-form. “If you jump to the last clip you get the climax scene. If you start at the beginning it is more soft-core. We’ve just done new encoding for new phones to make sure it looks good.”
Adult Entertainment giant Vivid Entertainment thrust itself into the “mobile space” early, particularly in Europe, where such content can be offered along with other telecom services, chief executive Steve Hirsch said.
Restrictions in the US limit smartphone users to reaching online porn by using Internet browsers.
“Revenue continues to increase with the roll-out of 3G,” Hirsch said, referring to a new-generation high-speed broadband network for mobile Internet service.
“The more phones that have video capability, the better it gets for us,” he said.
DVD SALES DOWN
Revenues from DVD sales, once the bulk of Vivid’s income, sank to 30 percent last year while online subscriptions, Internet video-on-demand and cable offerings became rising stars.
Digital delivery has yet to replace the money lost by decreasing DVD sales and brings with it piracy problems, Hirsch said.
“These are issues mainstream Hollywood is dealing with as well,” Hirsch said. “With new technology comes new issues, but ultimately people want to watch adult movies.”
Vivid shoots all its films in high-definition and is beefing up its library of titles in Blu-ray, adoption of which has boomed since being declared winner of a format war with HD DVD a year ago.
“We are interested in 3D for sure,” Hirsch said, cautioning that distributing special eyeglasses needed for such viewing is a challenge. “Certainly when you get Internet-enabled TVs it would make sense to go out and get those glasses distributed.”
High-resolution flat-panel televisions designed to link directly to Internet services were among an array of snazzy innovations unveiled at the international Consumer Electronics Show that ended in Las Vegas on Sunday.
“Obviously, the Internet is where it’s at,” Hirsch said. “We need to look to new technology and the future, as does Hollywood.”
While it may be slow in coming, the death of the neighborhood sex video shop appears inevitable, industry insiders said.
“Mobile and paid downloads is the way people are getting it,” Kysar said of porn. “They don’t want to have to return a rental or stash a DVD and worry about kids or relatives seeing their little smut collection.”
“How great would it be to have a porn Internet cafe?” she asked, dreamily peering into adult entertainment’s future. “Where it is private with cubicles — guys come in, log-on and hopefully don’t make a mess.”
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
Taiwanese exports to the US are to be subject to a 20 percent tariff starting on Thursday next week, according to an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump yesterday. The 20 percent levy was the same as the tariffs imposed on Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by Trump. It was higher than the tariffs imposed on Japan, South Korea and the EU (15 percent), as well as those on the Philippines (19 percent). A Taiwan official with knowledge of the matter said it is a "phased" tariff rate, and negotiations would continue. "Once negotiations conclude, Taiwan will obtain a better
RSS