• by Seana Mulcahy , November 1, 2004

Much has gone on prior to this lovely Monday morning: The Sox winning the World Series, Bin Laden's latest freaky video being aired on the news, Halloween, and a cluttered landscape of political advertising. The only thing I have to say about tomorrow is V-O-T-E. There is no need for me to write about the upcoming election.

That being said, my eyes grew wide as I winced at a recent Yankee Group report, "Child Protection Unlocks Wireless Adult Content Market." The bulk of wireless carriers are always concerned with its "walled gardens."

This is usage between its services. For instance, if I use Verizon and you use Verizon, most likely Verizon has a plan to incentivize us to talk together. The study found that there is significant traffic to adult content outside walled gardens.

Most carriers do not have a plan in place. However, the market for porn and other adult content on handsets will grow to around $90 million in the United States and $1 billion globally by 2008. The report said that if carriers develop a solid plan to protect minors, they could profit from the opportunity at hand. Of course this has already been done in the United Kingdom. But thus far a company called Vodafone is the only company that has done it.

How do you feel about this? It makes me cringe. As advertisers and marketers in the digital pace we work feverishly to increase clicks, conversions, page views, uniques, minutes used, messages sent, and the like.

Let me throw out a number for you: 75 million hits per week. I don't know about you but I salivate at the number... however then I find out...its PhoneErotica.com's stats. This company is a wireless start up and they've got better numbers than most sites.

So what's the big turn on for adult entertainment and wireless carriers? Well is seems that a lot of "viewers" don't like to input a credit card number before looking at porn on a wireless phone. In fact, there's only about 5 percent who do.

Yankee also found that these services in Europe are typically found from SMS advertising. Oh lovely, I spend so much of my time trying to assure clients and prospects that my firm has nothing to do with "intrusive" advertising, spam, or Adware, now I'll have to defend the SMS ads we send out too.

"Using premium SMS scenario, the cell phone carrier arguably distances itself from the content. The carrier can claim that its relationship to the adult content industry is similar to the landline operator's relationship with a sex hotline," Yankee reports.

Should mobile carriers be cutting deals with porn companies? If these companies do, they must make sure they have a plan in place to protect kids. They need to release clear guidelines to consumers to be proactive in tackling this issue. Most phones are under a parent's name. Porn could easily be sent via SMS messages to a phone registered to the parent, but used by the child. There doesn't seem to be much to stop a child from clicking on the ad and viewing. (Certainly this will catch up with them a month later when it appears on the bill.)

I guess I'd have to say that porn could really be the next killer app due to 3G technology today. Porn mogul Charles Prast told Reuters that while phone companies try to decide what the killer application will be for 3G, his company is convinced that sex is the answer.

"In new technologies, adult services usually account for 80 percent of traffic. It has been so with video, the Internet and DVD. It is natural to assume it will be the same with mobile Internet," Prast said.

Well I have to say I agree (more cringing) although I'm not happy to. I'd like to hear your thoughts and mention one detail... take a look at how small your screen is on your phone. Does this medium really make sense? What do you think? Post to the SPINboard.