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Online Porn - The Technology Testbed?
DaveAtFraud writes "USA Today is running a only slightly tongue-in-cheek article pointing out that the on-line porn industry has become the technology testbed for innovative content delivery. On-line delivery of 'adult' content has been wrestling with issues such as digital rights management, video on-demand billing, wireless services, and geo-location software since long before these became issues for 'mainstream' content providers. Maybe having an adult content provider listed on your geek resume isn't so bad after all."
Unlike viewers of corporate or media websites, these people won't complain if something doesn't work properly. No one's going to make a stink if their favorite porn website's flash animation isn't working properly, at least not publically.
Actually, forget BBS. Porn was a driving force in every single growing means of mass-communication. One of the first things printed in mass-form after the Bible was a series of pornographic images and texts; organized phone-sex programs drove pay-phone systems (i.e. 1-900 or 976 numbers); Playboy TV was one of the first premium channels, not to mention those pay-per-view channels.
Face it: sex is the driving force behind our [and every] species, so its no surprise that almost all of our cultural structures seem to largely depend on it somehow.
"Stumble before you crawl"
Yes, they are definitely ahead of the times compared to most others when it comes to technology, but they are also ahead of the times in the nextgen marketing/spam department.
Pop-ups? They did it first. Pop-unders? Did it first. The messenger exploit? Guess who.
God knows what else is brewing in the labs as we speak..
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
If you want to test a particular platform for scalability, have a porn outfit try it out.
It only makes sense, considering how rooted in sex we human beings really are. I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of, and if as a race we could be more open with our sexuality, it wouldn't cause so many other problems.
- percieved anonymity
- convienence...content delivered on demand
- privacy of enjoying content in own home
I wonder how many people would pay a porn site to download content, but will not be willing to go to an "adult bookstore" to buy the same content?
Will people still visit porn sites if their employers knew what sites they visit?
As much as some people would like to deny it Porn built the internet.
UTMS is a failure in Europe, despite early announcements of porn content.
It's true that the porn industry has been more open to technology changes than the rest of the content industry. But I believe that thanks to P2P, there's a measurable fraction of Internet traffic which isn't either DNS or porn. (Yes, you can share porn over P2P networks, too -- but let's be honest, porn is not everyone's favorite content. 8-)
Porn industry is quite responsive to new technology. Subscription models, streaming video, mobile content, all of these seem to make it in porn, but not the rest of the industry(not as easily).
ISPs also love hosting porn sites due to the highbandwidth, expensive accounts that these sites get. It's quite at how successful porn business is as compared to "decent" business models.
Actually, it's a question of statistics.
Let say that 10 million people come to see your free stuff. From past studies, you can approximate that 0.1% of viewers will take the "3 day trial membership", and 25% of these will forget to cancel in time there membership.
You end up having 10 000 people paying for a 3-day trial, and 2500 paying the full monthly charge. Now how much does it cost to produce the material?
These numbers are just from the top of my head, but you can guess that just bringing a lot of people to a site, even a free one, can be quite profitable.
I find it interesting that the article suggests that having experience in the online adult industry would be beneficial to one's resume. While technology may be driven by porn, I suspect that most subsequent employers would not be enlightened enough to see past the "porn" part of it...
This
Porn led the way for (in no particular order): "moving pictures", VHS, the printing press, paintings, photography, and just about every other form of media. Why? Because it's human nature to consume sexuality.
As you can tell I don't view porn, but is the Porn Industry doing full content streaming yet?
:)
The advertising industry nowadays wants/tries to do something more than just plain banner ads on the website, but have they found a way to do a full streaming efficiently?
IS PORN TECH THE ANSWER?
I doubt I'd find it if I tried but I remember reading an article about a year or more ago from a big porn site operator taking about the advantages of using J2EE technologies in their high traffic sites. There were also comments about companies using them to fine tune their frameworks because of the real world load they had. I found this article when I wanted to find out more about competing technologies. I specifically wanted to find what the porn industry was using for their websites knowing how much traffic they get. So I stuck with jsp/servlet programming. If it's good enough for half naked women with fake boobs, it's good enough for me!
Unfortunately, people might not go to well for the slogan "Java & J2EE, we help you get sticky."
Porn has helped innovate many industries. It's a shame there's too much of a stigma associated with it and they don't get the recognition they deserve.
Open Source Java DAO Generator
It is a great market for testing many things because it is such a commoditized and competitive market. The material is all the same boring stuff, so they need to explore new ways to market it. Is there a porn version of Netflix yet? Who is going to be the first in wireless porn?
--------
Create a WAP server
I'd also like to note that a couple of DVD features, such as multiple angels, were pretty much implemented thanks to the porn industry.
Think that's BS?
How many movies have multiple angles that DON'T involve storyboards?
How many PORN movies have multiple angles? (not that I personally know or anything...)
Yeah, thought so.
Quote from article: "...online-porn experts say." Isn't every male an online-porn expert? How does one become an 'online-porn expert'?
Porn is that perfect equilibrium point on the chart that economic theorists dream about - the ultimate cash nexus, where the supply demand curves collide in ecstatic harmony.
Consider - there is enough technical info on the internet to perform nuclear fusion, harness solar energy to power your homes, run your car on biofuel from corn instead of gasoline, create immense wealth from freely available portfolio management techniques, crack the genetic code, break RSA crypto, find the next largest Mersenne prime, or maybe just find a new home, repair your microwave, hawk your old CDs.....or even build yourself an H-bomb & blow up this planet to bits.
Yet, what is the most sought after commodity on the net ? Porn !
Why is that ?
In "The Wealth of Nations", Adam Smith explains the "Diamond-Water paradox". The most useful, valuable, life-sustaining entity on the planet is water - yet, it has practically no price, since supply is free ( it rains ! ). The least useful frivilous commodity is the diamond, but it has enormous, immense value in the eyes of man.
So, Smith says, an economist must never attempt to tie value with price, since they don't have much of a relationship. Porn on the net is much more valuable than all the useful techie manuals & MIT courseware put together, because Porn is the ultimate diamond.
It's all in how you write your resume. "Commercial internet based multi-media provideer" sounds much better than "systems administrator for Sluts-R-Us.com."
I can get it for you wholesale.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Porn always leads the way. From film to video to DVD to the internet. The only thing that's new with the internet is that there are new things happening all the time, and if you pay attention to what the porn sites are doing you can see what the other commercial sites will be doing in 6 months. Whether you talk about annoying popup ads, search engine optimizing, streaming video or p2p, if it can be done it's being done with porn.
Bite the hand.
Pretty much, yeah. And what do you think drove the "woodcut industry" in the first place? Why, those same naughty woodcuts. What do you fueled the translation of the world's literature into European colloquial languages? Check out the unexpergated version of the Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night (The Arabian Nights to you and me), available at . . . .Project Gutenberg, in seventeen volumes. What do you suppose they were doing some of those nights?
Naughty Woodsman stories have always been the staple of the printing trade.
Naughty figurines go back as far as man made objects. What do you suppose drove the world porcelain trade, tea cups? The Victorian "gentleman" had a fine taste for delicate China dolls that had a "surprise" when you upended them.
Who woulda thunk that a species which reproduces sexually and without "season" would be eternally mindful of sex.
And woulda thunk that such would become pornography and "obscene"?
Gimme that old time religion.
Let us pray with Aphrodite
Let us play with Aphrodite
She wears that see through nighty
And that's good enough for me!
KFG
There's actually truth in this. They refused to lisence the Beta technology to Porn Producers. So they industry went to VHS. The rest is history.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
You don't think Guttenberg only printed bibles, do you?
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
I'm seeing a lot of questions out there for 'who would actually buy porno', and I'm suprised that no one is stating what (to me at least) would be the obvious answers
I'm going to point out that I heavily considered positing anonomusly cause I'm a coward; but decided not to.
1-People who want to dictate things; most porn sites mention that when your a paying member you can request seeing your faviorate 'actress' in different scenarios- If you've got a fetish for a green haired version of your faviorate internet-porn actress in a pumpkin patch (most ridiculus but likely to take place example I could come up with) and your a paying customer; you can get it.
2-People who want to get involved in things, at least superficially (being a 'web cam director at a 'mere 2.95 a minute on top of your regular membership')
3-For the really creepy stuff; buying things that your faviorate porn actress has worn (lots of porn sites advertise this bizarr activity; then again, apparantly they sell worn girls panties in vending machines in japan)
4-Full Length Videos; Ignoring illegally downloading them off of P2P networks, if you like videos signing up to these places is often the way to go; even over P2P networks the video's are often portions of larger clips
5-Video Purchase (though this often dose not nessessitiate being a member; there is often a discount that makes it worthwile if your going to buy a few); because eventually your going to run out of hard disk space from downloading, or want 3 hours of solid girl on girl action on DVD.
I should point out that a casual porn store will be able to facilitate a few of those; but I imagine what you get from a website is more 'amature' or 'girl next door' then what you'd get in professional porn.
-Millions of Monkeys, Millions of typewriters, 6 hours of sorting through faeces encrusted pages to find: This post
I would agree with that. Remember, employers aren't just looking at your skill set, they're also wondering how you're going to fit in/contribute to the overall corporate culture. If your hunger for pornography is strong and your morals so low that you'd go to work for a pornographer, what is your behavior going to be like in the office? Are you going to regularly surf for porn at your desk? Are you going to sexually harass women in the office? Whether or not such suspicions are justified, this is the kind of stuff that people will think about you.
NPR had an interesting profile a long time ago of a CEO who was wanting to change industries. He oversaw several thousand employees in a highly successful organization. He managed numerous facilities in various countries, and was an expert in managing international financial issues. Why couldn't he find work? He was a drug kingpin.
Skills are only a part of the story. Unless your future boss is an unfeeling android, then the context of how you acquired those skills will also very important.
1. Brilliant idea
2. Apply to porn industry
3. Profit!
I think it would be more accurate to say that the military is still the leader in DEVELOPING such technology, while the porn industry is the leader of finding innovative uses for such technology. The porn industry didn't invent the VCR or the net, they just figured out some awesome ways to use it.
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Face it: sex is the driving force behind our [and every] species, so its no surprise that almost all of our cultural structures seem to largely depend on it somehow.
I'd argue that sex itself has nothing to do with it - it's the incredible preoccupation and obsession with it that comprises this "driving force."
I'm still trying to figure out what's 'adult' about most 'adult' content, since much of it depicts a complete absence of restraint, common sense, and reality in general - all the things we're told are important while growing up. Either we're massive hypocrites, or they really are important.
There's this guy who sits close by where I work - I get the impression that he thinks he's a real savvy dude. What he doesn't know is that I know everything he does on the network- including all the hardcore porn sites he visits. It's sad, but I get a good laugh out out of it.
An interesting theory, but incorrect. While people do seek out porn, there are so many competing adult companies that advertising is extremely important. Content and delivery methods are far less important than traffic. Most online adult companies spend the lions share of their budget on advertising.
The porn industry has always been a driving force in widespread adoption of technology.
Think VCRs, would they be so popular without porn?
Porn certainly didn't invent or build the internet but it exposed the internet to households across the world that otherwise would never use it.
Without porn the internet would be used by geeks in a very limited niche of technology.
Porn brought the internet to the massess
cough
two cans and a string, now that's innovation