As I mentioned yesterday, Tim Vandecasteele and I chatted for one hour on Saturday, March 15. There was so much good material, I decided to make this a two part-series (click here for the first part). In this entry, we'll talk about Tim's concerns about mobile porn, legal and ethical implications, and the struggles of optimizing search engines for porn. Don't worry, tomorrow we'll be back to shorter, more digestible bits.
"iPhonePornGrid [iPG] like it is now is more of an experiment," Tim told me. "Does porn work on the iPhone?... indeed, it's super-accessible." Let's face it, of course porn works on the iPhone. It's an easy to use browser that can link to the internet via the EDGE network or any stray Wi-fi. In short, it's perfect for the lonely, computerless guy to whip up some inspiration for very portable way to get his rocks off.
But porn raises all kinds of issues. "I think Apple is afraid of [getting] a bad reputation," Tim says. "Porn is associated with spam and viruses." And, think about it: if iPhone really became a popular conduit for porn, it would make it more enticing for virus developers to create Mac viruses thus tarnishing Mac's superior reputation.
Tim also shared that only 37.69% of the visitors to iPG come through on the at&t EDGE network, meaning that a large portion are using the wifi capability, "so... it will definitely matter if iPhone has 3G." (We'll talk more about 3G in future entries.)
Mobile porn also raises concerns about minors. How do producers ensure that the phone is in the hands of not-so-impressionable eyes? Tim postures that, because iPG does not produce any content, they are able to avoid the legal red tape.
And just who are "they", the producers of iPG? Tim, age 23 and his 22 year old journalist brother. While Tim is in his last year at the University of Ghent studying electrical engineering, his brother, who has less tech experience, "uploads the content."
"The idea of iPG came because RubMyClit was such a huge success and the Google ads actually made some money," or so Tim says. "Too bad Google ads aren't allowed on porn sites-- so I went to AVN ads."
Getting money from a mobile porn site when you don't actually produce content is harder than you'd think. It's not like Tim and his brother at iPG are just middle men in a normal industry. They are running a porn site built for a mobile device. Because the iPhone display is different than a regular monitor, and because the EDGE network isn't as fast as your DSL, iPG seeks to make porn to fit the iPhone and load quicker. Tim says the average user spends 6 minutes and 23 seconds on iPG (to which my response was, naturally: "Well, that's long enough for me sometimes..."). We'll also talk more about how porn drives the development of new technologies in a future entry.
While iPG is not unique (there are many competitors you can read about on this VERY NSFW review site of mobile porn), Tim's model is a bit different from most being that they do not produce any content. "All [the] content is just from affiliate programs," meaning that users can see some content on iPG (quite a lot actually- all straight) and then decide whether to join an affiliate site. Simple enough, really.
"Actually, I want to go to some kind of paying model, but micropayments are not so easy, especially not for porn," Tim pines. By micropayments, Tim is talking about payments like "per picture or per minute instead of the pricier subscription model. "I want to make the payment quick and easy, but I haven't yet discovered the iPhone way of paying."
It's just not so easy to type all that information into the iPhone. But the alternative "micropayments" work a lot like the 900 numbers used to and how voting for American Idol used to: they partner with the phone companies who compile all the "Sir Charges" and put them on your phone bill. "In Europe we have some good SMS payment systems," Tim says. And I don't have to tell you how difficult it will be to make that case with US carriers.
So what does the future hold for iPG? Tim is looking into search optimization, but it's pretty difficult to rank on porn searches (imagining that the two best keywords for iPG would be "iPhone" and "porn", both likely already in hot contest). But Tim seems nonplussed, "In approximately one month I [made] my hosting costs back for a year. The rest are just little extras."
But to be honest, "We're actually looking into buying content of shooting content [if] feasible," Tim says. And, after all, like any guy, Tim says, "I consider shooting as a fun part, that's exactly why we're looking into it."
*I'd like to thank Tim for not only giving me an exclusive first interview, but also just being an all-around nice guy and tolerating my ridiculous line of questioning. We wish you and your brother all the best with your endeavor!*
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