Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest cell phone service provider, quietly has launched filtering devices and password-enabled blockers that help thwart underage consumers from buying adult content.

The absence of V-chip-style parental controls largely has kept U.S. consumers from using cell phones to access porn, but Cingular, along with rivals, could launch a huge new porn platform.

The evolution of video-capable wireless devices has made mobile porn an emerging cultural phenomenon and booming enterprise. Global 2005 sales will hit $1 billion, up 175% from 2004, says Juniper Research. U.S. sales are just $30 million, mostly because carriers, fearful of a backlash, haven't provided easy access to X-rated theater.

Web-enabled phones can download porn from the Internet, but access is cumbersome, and carriers don't share fees with content providers. By offering "on deck" portals, carriers can reap fat user fees.

The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association recently issued content ratings standards, prompting Cingular's move.

"Certainly, this is going to make it easier to view porn in more places than ever," says Pamela Paul, author of Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families.

Anti-porn crusaders say content ratings and parental controls aside, mobile porn will be problematic. "Some parents don't monitor what kids download. And they can't monitor what other kids do," says Charmaine Yoest of the Family Research Council.

Balancing business interests, free-speech rights and protecting kids "is tricky," says Cingular's Mark Siegel. "But we feel parents should decide what (kids) access. We're giving them the ability to control what they experience."

Notes Yankee Group analyst Linda Barrabee: "Carriers don't want to be known as adult-content purveyors. But they understand the opportunity to make money."

Scores of marketers are lining up to tap the U.S. market. Xobile, a content provider for Web-capable wireless devices, will offer 50,000 video clips, says operations chief Harvey Kaplan. Porn star Ron Jeremy licensed his name to RJ Mobile, which offers adult content in Britain and Holland. He's not sure of the U.S. appetite for mobile porn, though. "Who wants to watch this stuff on a tiny screen?" he says.

Kathee Brewer, an editor for Adult Video News, says consumers will be lured by portability.

Steve Hirsch, co-CEO of adult film giant Vivid Entertainment, expects mobile porn to eventually account for 30% of sales. "This is going to explode. People will want porn in their pocket," he says.

also ...

Cell Phone Porn Not Making Much

The Guardian, 8/24/05 - Sex sells, according to the old marketing adage. But while the adult entertainment industry swooped on the introduction of video recorders, embraced multi-angle DVD players and hijacked the internet, cell phones seem to have slipped its grasp.

At the height of the dotcom boom, as cell phone companies began looking for revenues from non-voice services, adult content was lauded as a money-spinner based on its success in the online world.

Since then, all the UK operators have dabbled in the provision of erotic content, either directly or by allowing customers to access content provided by third parties. For customers who want them, there are wallpapers, screensavers, videos, animated scantily clad women and even "moantones" for those who find that Crazy Frog just doesn't do it for them.

But the figures do not match the hype. In its report into the mobile entertainment industry last month, industry expert Informa predicted that the market for erotic content for mobile devices will be worth $2.3bn (£1.3bn) by 2010 compared with just under $1bn this year. Within five years there will be more than 114 million regular users of adult services compared with 65 million now.

They may look good, but these figures are dwarfed by the overall mobile market. There are already well over 1 billion mobile phone users, and by 2010 that will have passed 3 billion, according to research by Gartner. Informa's prediction for the entire mobile phone content market, including music and gaming, is $43bn by 2010. Adult services will account for just 5% of the market.

"If you take it out of the context of the wider market, $2.3bn is not a small amount of money," says Daniel Winterbottom, senior research analyst at Informa and author of the report. "It's just when you put it next to things like music and games, which we believe will take off, it's not quite as impressive a part as made out in previous years."

Graeme Oxby, marketing director of 3, the UK's newest mobile phone operator, admits: "It is not very important in terms of the volume of usage. It is dwarfed by music and football and comedy.

"It was massively important on the internet partly at a time when next to nothing was charged for apart from access. For mobiles it is just a bit of the cake."

John Conlon, head of adult services at Virgin Mobile, concurs. "I think it is going to be a money-spinner," he says, "but only in the same sense as music, gaming and gambling. It was pitched as the great white hope for mobiles but it is just one service."

The adult content industry believes the operators are downplaying the importance of their wares because they do not want to be seen as peddling pornography. The mobile phone networks, for example, have done deals with well-known adult brands such as Playboy, Hustler and Paul Raymond.

Julia Dimambro, director and co-founder of Cherry Media, which operates the Cherry Sauce mobile phone adult content portal, reckons such deals are an attempt by the operators to distance themselves from the content.

"Operators are saying that it is not the big revenue driver, but they cannot be seen to be promoting adult content because it affects their brand as a mobile operator," she says.

The mobile phone operators' biggest fear is that adult content will be viewed by children. Last year, the networks plus Virgin Mobile produced a code of conduct and set up the Independent Mobile Content Board (IMCB), which takes best practice from standards bodies such as the British Board of Film Classification and adapts them for mobile phones.

Under that agreement, mobile phone users are barred from viewing content the IMCB deems adult, and it cannot be accessed without an age check being carried out.

"It is essential to us that the people who get to see over-18 content are over 18," says Mr Oxby. However, the adult content available through the mobile phone operators' portals is fairly tame. The video clips available on 3, for example, "in no sense could it be described as hardcore", according to Mr Oxby.

Aim-listed mobile content group Blue Star recently signed a deal with O2 to bring Page 3 models to mobile phones.

With its generally young customer profile in mind, Virgin Mobile has slapped a no-nipples rule on its content. Mr Conlon believes that the market for fun, flirty and sexy content is much wider than the market for the purely erotic.

For example, Virgin has run a successful WAP-based Beauty or Beast game that takes the form of a striptease quiz. A right answer removes a piece of clothing from the model on the screen, a wrong one generates a less appealing picture, such as a "granny with her teeth out".

It's the sort of tongue-in-cheek content found in lad's mags rather than in top-shelf publications, and it is interaction rather than graphic detail that seems to turn on more punters, Virgin believes.

The Glasgow-based DA Group has developed animated "fantasy babes" who can interact with mobile phone users. "What we do is more on the fun side than the seedy side," explains sales and marketing director Cyril Scott. "The sort of stuff you would not be embarrassed if your mum saw on your phone."

Ms Dimambro, however, reckons there is a real market for more hardcore content, provided it has the interactive element that mobiles can bring.

Cherry Media's wap.cherry sauce.com age-verified mobile site gets 300,000 hits a month with no marketing behind it. The site repurposes content from top-shelf providers such as Private, and is currently working on a 3G service that will take interactivity to the next level. It offers punters the chance to pick particular girls and act out fantasies.

"A 15-second clip of someone twirling around in a bikini is fine," says Ms Dimambro. "But if it is two minutes long it starts to get boring after 45 seconds."

See ...
Xobile has 50,000 Mini Porn Movies for Mobile Phones
Mobile Porn - $3.3 Billion Business by 2011

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