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ETO Technology News - May 2006 edition
AOE set the date(s)
Two dates for future Adult Online Europe events, organised by World Telemedia Ltd. have been announced. The two up coming shows are dedicated to broadband and mobile erotica and pornography. On the 22nd of July this year they'll be holding 'AOE Webmasters' in London, a VIP networking day for UK adult industry Internet professionals. Then from the 8th to the 10th of November 'Europe's leading adult trade event for mobile, online and iTV' will be held in Budapest. These follow on from events in Lisbon in 2004, Prague in 2005 and Amsterdam in 2004 and last year. Visit www.aoexpo.com for the latest information. Their April '06 show, which took place in Berlin from the 24th to the 26th of April, will be reviewed in next month's edition of ETO.
Short little extension.
The .eu internet extension has been added to the .coms, .nets .co.uks, etc. Released in April, many have already been snapped up but if you have a business with European appeal, a .eu address may be worth considering. Even if you don't, at approx. 33% cheaper than the equivalent .org, .net, .biz, .info or .com to lease, it's a good budget option without having to plumb the depths of .me.uk or .uk.net. To check URL availability I use www.GetDotted.com to do free comprehensive searches.
Playboy looks to Playful Boys.
After becoming dominant in the soft-core VOD/iTV market and keen to explore new avenues, Playboy Enterprises has targeted the UK for their first move into the gay market. They hope a new 'pink' brand will build on last year's $329 million ($14 pre-tax profit) world-wide revenue, while not endangering their self-styled 'Pro Sex rather than Pornographic' image.
Chief Executive Christie Hefner said: "We've extended the Playboy brand to women, and where there is a meaningful gay market, launching under a different brand is something we are very comfortable doing. In the UK, our television people are very interested, and I wouldn't be surprised if we launched something this year, given the importance of the market in Britain."
Despite a circulation of around three million, the firm's flagship Playboy Magazine is only just profitable. In more recent years the company has expanded onto more lucrative product licensing, targeting women's clothing and accessories specifically. This strategy of diversification has also seen a large growth in the mobile phone adult video clips and wallpaper business. Their new focus on the gay market is simply an extension of this strategy, which has seen straight soft-core pornography on TV become Playboy's most profitable activity. Ms Hefner is described as preferring to call the company's activities "valuing sexiness and style" and "giving entertainment for grown-ups" - now grown-ups of all sexualities.
Christie's father, Hugh (approx. 79), founded Playboy and publicly listed the company in 1971. He remains in control of the business through a duel-share structure of voting and non-voting stock. Following several years of losses brought on by heavy investment in Internet expansion, the business which is valued at $466m, is back in profit under the direction of Ms Hefner (55) who's run it since 1988.
Another upcoming event.
As well as the two AOE shows, there's the EuroWebtainment 2006 event in Mallorca or Majorca, if you prefer. AOE will still have a presence there, as 'Cooperations Partner'. It's to be held from the 11th to the 14th of May at the Hotel Uto Palace in Palma. Drawing international visitors including adult content producers and providers, webmasters and payment service providers, non-adult carriers, print and TV media partners are also expected to visit the three-day show. It'll feature chats at the bar, seminars, training events, speeches, speed-networking and party nights. Learn more at www.eurowebtainment.com.
Talk to the A.I. 'cos the face ain't listening.
An exciting development for people who like to let their fingers (or thumbs) do the taking is the intelligent SMS system launched by Stockport-based Numéro. SmartAgént éSMS uses NLP (Natural Language Programming) to read, comprehend and intelligently respond to unstructured text messages sent in plain English, without the need for human intervention. Evn whn th msgs r in txt spk. Claiming it's a first for Europe, Chief Executive of the company Guy Colclough explained the technology in terms of what it does for the user.
"So, if a customer wants to "find stores in Manchester that sell DVD's" or "find a hotel room for three nights in Manchester city centre" the system will read and understand the text and send back the information - it will also give them a choice of reserving or ordering the product or service they want, and organising a home delivery. éSMS has the ability to enact complex business transactions like product purchases, price comparisons, stock availability, or room reservations all from a text and a standard phone."
'Fire and Forget' methods of communication grow ever more popular and with over 70% of the UK population owning at least one mobile phone, it should come as little surprise that over eight billion texts are sent annually. That's actually only 190 per phone per year on average, when I know several people who rarely send less than ten a day. It's suggested Numéro's software will open the mobile up as a sales channel for retailers in the way that 'online ordering' did via the Internet.
To date, automatic-text-recognition has been limited to sending very specific messages for betting, ring-tone retrieval, polls (think Big Brother) or for purchase confirmations. A few organisations use a dedicated text number for customer services/support, but this type of service requires a person to respond to the texter. This costs money and time - especially if several enquiries arrive at once and need to be dealt with in rotation by a human agent.
This technology has a lot of potential for use within the adult industry. Text-sex chat being an obvious start, but ordering any kind of video clip via a mobile phone or accessing a local adult services directory -"I want to meet an attractive TS in Brighton to spank"- has to be considered.
Numéro has a history of successfully deploying similar intelligent interpretational technology to handle customer emails sent to some of the UK's major retailers, including Tesco and Argos. Colclough concluded, "This is an exciting technological breakthrough - never before has the technology existed to read, understand and respond to customers via SMS without human interaction, - we're entering a new phase in shopping." www.ThisIsNumero.com would be the right place to start if you want to learn more.
Download-2-Own.com. It does exactly what it says on the URL.
HotMovies.com, one of the 'net's fastest growing pay-per-view adult sites, announced in April the creation of a sister site, Download-2-Own.com. As the name suggests, this is a download rather than streaming site that offers unlimited access to a whole DVD title once it's saved to a hard drive, as opposed to HotMovies.com's pay-per-minute streaming. The launch of the new site and service is in direct response to customer's comments, it's said. HotMovies.com approached the studios supplying them content and received an enthusiastic response from many of them. At launch, 8000 titles from eighty studios were available, with around a quarter of them truly 'unlimited'. Others offered 7 or 30-day digital 'rentals'. Legend, Filmco, Leisure Time and VCX, among others, are participating in this new service.
Dave Sutton, VCX president, said, "As the 'Home of the Classics', it is crucial that VCX maintain a cutting-edge approach to technology that will continue to keep our titles in the public eye. Partnering with HotMovies.com has done exactly that. They were our first VOD venture and our revenue continues to grow in that space. We have great expectations for Download-2-Own.com."
National A-1 Internet own both HotMovies.com and Download-2-Own.com and James Seibert, their Director of Business Development, said they have these digital content delivery breakthroughs because they have their finger on the pulse of data technology. "With our no-commitment, no-membership billing model, we've established HotMovies.com as one of the most convenient and innovative adult sites on the Internet," he says. "This is just one more way to offer our visitors the largest possible selection of quality adult films through digital delivery which is the way they want to watch them. At HotMovies.com, visitors watch what they want, when they want, for as little as 8 cents a minute. There are no memberships, no commitments, and more than 35,000 adult titles in streaming or download from which to choose." - Download-2-Own.com is set to offer similar advantages to the end user. No details on anti-piracy measures could be discovered, perhaps because they hope not to give the nature of their anti-copying, anti-redistribution mechanisms away. But it's safe to assume some Digital Rights Management code is included in the files. Content providers who'd like to be part of this revolution in content delivery can learn more and sign up at MovieDollars.com.
Real DVD on Demand - a Burning Need?
Vivid Entertainment has announced the launch of a new service through AllAdultChannel.com that lets consumers buy, download and burn a film to DVD. Combining the advantages of instant gratification (depending on connection speed!) of downloading or streaming VOD material with the desire to 'posses' the film in physical form, this technology uses DRM code to ensure only a single copy is burned, complete with menus, navigation and bonus features. What's not clear is if the discs will be CSS encrypted, which could leave them vulnerable to decryption and replication with DVD Decrypter or DVDShrink software. There will also be close monitoring of the initially released Vivid titles in case the data starts to appear more regularly on P2P film-swapping (piracy) networks. If it does, the technology may not yet be ready for commercial use. If there's no obvious increase in illegal distribution, the adult entertainment industry can be rightly proud of being at the cutting edge of this new digital delivery method. To begin with thirty Vivid titles were made available in April for approx. $25 each, which is around US adult DVD retail price. Case artwork will also be available via download, so a good colour printer and a jewel-case could be the final pieces of must-have equipment for the full DVD experience.
Vivid CEO Steven Hirsch said, "Obviously we wanted to protect the copyright. As soon as [All Adult Channel] was able to get the DRM in place, they had something that really interested us. We're the first studio offering a complete DVD that you can download and own. And then you can do whatever you like with it. It's a way of making it portable. We expect that ultimately, just like downloading music and burning to CD, people will be downloading movies and burning them to DVD." He added, "The entire industry is changing. We're content producers and we want many different avenues to get our movies out there."
Vivid now shoot about 80% of their films in HD, so the service can be extended to the new HD standard as soon as home PC HD-DVD (or Blu-Ray) recorders are available. The downside of this is extra demand on the servers and Internet, as file sizes increase, but it's estimated that the telecoms networks will be able to handle the extra demand when it arrives.
Quite apart from personal discretion for the end user and the convenience of not having to travel to and find a licensed adult shop, the advantages of this system are lowered manufacturing (to zero - the downloader will be paying for the blank disc) and distribution costs, and no stock level issues. Clearly not great news if you're in DVD distribution or retail though. Time to think about broadening your company's product portfolio and remember, until Star Trek replicators become available, you can't download a dildo.
A new taste for Vanilla.
Pure Vanilla Exchange Incorporated has begun the final phase of beta testing in anticipation of a product launch and nation-wide rollout. Their Big Idea is an online system (to be at purevanilla.com) and in-store 'pV' cards that they hope will become a universal and anonymous payment solution for securely and conveniently buying adult online content. As well as a fairly traditional online billing system they expect consumers to be able to purchase pV cards that give access to adult sites through thousands of retail locations in the US by June 2006. If the project is a success, it's expected to expand into the global market in 2007.
Acting CEO of Pure Vanilla Exchange, Florian Schuhbauer, said, "Our technology is in place as we move through the final beta testing phase with merchants. We continue to believe that our product addresses the major issues facing both merchants and consumers regarding payment issues in the adult online industry, primarily privacy, anonymity, credit card theft and identity theft. Our beta testing will confirm this as we move forward and our products are introduced into the marketplace."
In a complicated shuffle, Pure Vanilla recently completed a 'reverse merger' (split?) with NVS Entertainment, Inc. NVS Entertainment intends to merge Pure Vanilla into itself and to change its name to Pure Vanilla Exchange, Inc. Until then it'll continue to operate Pure Vanilla Exchange, Inc. as a wholly owned subsidiary of NVS. Clear? Good.
Some company blurb: 'pV's proprietary payment network is anonymous, time-efficient, and prepaid. pV answers the needs of online merchants because its system accelerates cash flow, eliminates chargebacks, reduces processing fees and increases merchant exposure through the pV listing. It's expected pV will leverage its technology to sign-up thousands of consumer online accounts and merchants daily. As the only end-to-end Adult industry adopted payment system, pV is expected to lead and dominate the payment processing for a significant and growing global industry'. And then there was a 195-word legal-sounding statement saying, basically, 'we hope'.
Giant problems for Hustler, etc.
Giant Mobile, the Santa Monica-based wireless content producer, filed multiple claims against LFP, Inc. in mid-April. LFP (Larry Flynt Publishing) is based in Beverly Hills and is behind such well-known magazines as Hustler, Taboo and Barely Legal. LFP has been accused of breaching a June 2003 contract they entered into with Giant Mobile. It's alleged they reneged on their deal when they signed an arrangement with another, competing business. Giant further claim that LFP and their new licensee undermined Giant's other distribution relationships before trying to terminate their agreement.
Over $23million is sought in damages for LFP's supposed failure to honour their licensing deal. A spokesperson for Giant was asked if they believed if Larry Flynt was personally involved in the decision to break the contract and responded, "We are not sure, we always thought Hustler owner Larry Flynt was an honourable guy. We trusted him. It is a shame Larry is letting Michael Klein ruin his reputation as a straight shooter. We hope that once he has all the information in front of him, Larry will do the right thing." Giant assert that when Michael Klein, who's LFP Broadcasting President, took charge of the business, "He went out of his way to disrupt Giant's existing relationship with LFP, cut Giant out of the marketplace and deny it any credit for helping to establish the Hustler Mobile brand."
The lawsuit has been filed with JAMS, a private arbitration organisation which uses retired trial judges as arbitrators in business disputes.
If you have a story or press release you think should be included in a future Technology News feature, please contact our Technology Editor, Paul Smith via Paul@EroticTradeOnly.com.