• by Larry Dobrow , Featured Columnist, September 23, 2005

The scene: a Manhattan Banana Republic. Customers mill about, their muffled footsteps nearly drowning out the store's Muzak loop.

Suddenly, an unrestrained "Oh! Oh! OH!" peals from a shopper's cell phone. Meeting a fellow customer's knowing glance, he shrugs his shoulders and grins.

Welcome to the world of so-called moan tones, erotic content developed for mobile devices. Though such content -- cheerfully dubbed "port-a-porn" by devotees -- hasn't yet gained a foothold in the United States, its prevalence in Europe and Asia suggests it could be the next big trend to hit the wireless world.

"This thing will kill on impulse buys alone," says Anh Tran, Wanted List CEO, whose new company, Melt Mobile, takes a relatively chaste approach to the space: They developed a Tamagotchi-like virtual girlfriend.