Mobile porn keeps its head down

3GSM 2007

Mobile 'erotic entertainment' companies are thick on the ground at 3GSM this year, although the hall in which they are gathered is keeping a low profile.

While many companies are making money from producing porn for handheld devices, very few are prepared to talk about it.

A row erupted over such content during the show after Canadian Archbishop Raymond Roussin of Vancouver called for a boycott of Canada's second largest mobile operator after it started selling pornographic material.

"Given the increasing awareness of addiction to pornography through internet access, and the abuse that this perpetuates of vulnerable persons, the decision by Telus is disappointing and disturbing," he told the British Columbia Catholic newspaper.

Nevertheless there is a lot of business being done on the stands and some companies are making more of a fuss than others.

Brickhouse Mobile held an event on its stand in which Aria Giovanni, a performer in many Brickhouse offerings, launched her handheld website to an excited crowd.

The bread-and-butter of the mobile porn industry is still SMS. Uses subscribe to one-on-one chat with a model (usually working in a call centre), but these are increasingly being sold a branded services with celebrity porn actresses.

"SMS pays the bills, but other formats are becoming more popular," said the representative of a mobile erotica company who wished to remain nameless.

"Wallpaper is getting bigger, but movie loops are the future. Very few people are going to sit and watch a whole film on a handheld, but they will pay for a clip."

The representative added that the increasing integration of camera technology in phones is already making porn a Web 2.0 player.

Websites like PornoTube, a similar site to YouTube but with adult content, are growing in popularity, and already accept phone-recorded content provided that the quality is good enough.

• 3GSM Special Report