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May 12, 2007

Internet Pornography Stats

Michael Arrington

75 comments »

Check out this video from Good Magazine that shows a number of stats about the Internet pornography industry, in an “almost” not safe for work format. It is staggering how much actual money flows through porn and how many people are involved in the industry:

  • 89% of porn is created in the U.S.
  • $2.84 billion in revenue was generated from U.S. porn sites in 2006
  • $89/second is spent on porn
  • 72% of porn viewers are men
  • 260 new porn sites go online daily

We’ve covered a handful of adult-related startups here. These include a porn-specific browser called HeatSeek (that has connections to Sequoia-funded Songbird), a user-generated porn YouTube clone called Pornotube, as well as a few others like EroShare and ScrewTube.

Usually the porn industry innovates first and key features make their way to more mainstream sites. But over the last couple of years, many of the new ideas around web applications, like user generated content, video sharing, etc., went mainstream first and are now hitting the porn sites.

CrunchBase Information
Pornotube
Eroshare
Information provided by CrunchBase
  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 12th, 2007 at 3:30 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Kewtr

    May 12th, 2007 at 3:40 pm

    Nicely made video.

    The 12% of all sites seems high, and the $2.84bln seems low, but overall I was happy that it appears my porn consumption is somewhere in the average range.

    I want to see a breakdown of that 4% from Germany, because somehow they produce like 50% of the truly rank stuff. Japan brings the rest.

  2. eBizMBA

    May 12th, 2007 at 3:44 pm

    Now this is the type of cutting edge industry finds I expect from TechCrunch. Thanks good info.

  3. abba-daddy

    May 12th, 2007 at 3:59 pm

    Amazing Video.
    What is the % of users that are from the countries that are banning porn ?

  4. Jonathan Cohen

    May 12th, 2007 at 4:13 pm

    Despite the het-focus of the video, it’d be nice to see the breakdown between gay and straight porn consumption online.

  5. Paul

    May 12th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

    Only 72% of porn visitors are men? I though that it’d be way higher than this! Very good info that you’d only find on TechCrunch ;).

  6. Allen Stern

    May 12th, 2007 at 4:26 pm

    today must be porn day - both mike and pete reported on different porn items at almost the exact same time!
    http://mashable.com/2007/05/12/pornhorneo/

  7. Pocahontas

    May 12th, 2007 at 5:30 pm

    Do people like to spread Adultry, HIV, AIDS, STD all over the world?

  8. Pocahontas

    May 12th, 2007 at 5:37 pm

    By the way, I’m very religious person. I don’t like porn startup news. I’m might find it offensive.

    How would you feel if you caught your daughter having sex 10 different gorillas online?

  9. Seth Finkelstein

    May 12th, 2007 at 5:48 pm

    Not that it’ll make any difference, but the statistics are likely fiction.

    “89% of porn is created in the U.S” seems particularly suspicious.

  10. Alaska Miller

    May 12th, 2007 at 5:51 pm

    I think this the video is wrong because I don’t trust those numbers. 89 is too rigid of a number. 72 is too stupid of a number. And I think porn makes 53.4 gazillion dollars a year.

    In fact, this whole entry should be deleted because the numbers are not right. I know this because I personally am accountable for all porn produced.

  11. Kewtr

    May 12th, 2007 at 5:57 pm

    I ♥ Pocahontas.

  12. patricia

    May 12th, 2007 at 6:13 pm

    Interesting. Now if only they could get away from cheesy names like ScrewTube….

  13. pornguy

    May 12th, 2007 at 6:58 pm

    some of these numbers seem BS actually most.

  14. Raj

    May 12th, 2007 at 7:11 pm

    Yeah…I agree. I mean online Porn has to be MUCH LARGER in terms of revenue than $2.5 Billion. I mean, that is less than 1 quarter at Google. The most meaningful stat that is missing is how much porn sites spend on advertising at Google (which unlike eBay a company LOVE the revenue from porn and gambling sites) - I am sure this amount is about $1-2 Billion.

    Also, a lot of Porn online is underground stuff (like kiddie porn and other horribly illegal stuff) - I remember a story a few years ago a very small kiddie porn site was shut down and the police said they were pulling in about $10-$20 Mil a year. I can’t believe they were 1% of the industry.

  15. Matt

    May 12th, 2007 at 7:19 pm

    Almost?

  16. sean percival

    May 12th, 2007 at 7:27 pm

    Who knew woman even looked at net porn (says 28% of traffic is women)

    I figured that number would be a lot less

  17. Allen Stern

    May 12th, 2007 at 7:35 pm

    BTW, here is the woman in the video and the link to the good magazine (which I found on Digg video section fyi)
    http://www.goodmagazine.com/se.....ernet_Porn

  18. smokey

    May 12th, 2007 at 8:15 pm

    Good find Mike! But I don’t think I trust some of the stats; although I enjoyed the video, it was very creative.

  19. Mousefinger

    May 12th, 2007 at 9:19 pm

    “89% of porn is created in the U.S.”

    Yay!

  20. Mousefinger

    May 12th, 2007 at 9:20 pm

    Does anyone know how the block the “snap shots” that TechCruch uses? I hate those. Would love the block them from popping up.

  21. Jaan

    May 12th, 2007 at 9:29 pm

    Don’t ask me how I know this, but you forgot to mention the ever popular XTube. According to some people, it has less spam and higher quality content than PornoTube. There is also a ‘rewards’ program.

  22. Jaime

    May 12th, 2007 at 9:36 pm

    Truly interesting statistics, I guess they forgot this, women earn much money than men in the sex industry.

    It’s ironic India is banning porn having the most ancient sexual culture like Tantra and Kamasutra

  23. Pocahontas is Hot

    May 12th, 2007 at 9:41 pm

    Pocahontas: I also have faith, but am consistently annoyed by people who claim that others should censor themselves just so that they can feel at ease with the world. Faith is lived in the world, not outside of it.

  24. Jay

    May 12th, 2007 at 9:52 pm

    KelleMarie is hot.

  25. HeatSeek

    May 12th, 2007 at 11:10 pm

    Could someone correct the spelling of “HeatSeek” (no ‘a’) in your link? :)

  26. Kuahine

    May 13th, 2007 at 12:51 am

    Why did you put “almost” in quotes? What were you trying to convey?

  27. Rebecca

    May 13th, 2007 at 2:52 am

    Hey, thought you didn’t want to talk about porn?
    greetings from the Dutch journalist ;-)

  28. myplaylist.biz

    May 13th, 2007 at 3:24 am

    WTF?

    Sheer bolox numbers and WTF happened to Screwtube?

    Where still a blank page continues to repeatedly get mentioned on FuckCrunch?

    Content is obviously lacking here too.

  29. Clyde Smith

    May 13th, 2007 at 6:30 am

    Glad to see people questioning these questionable numbers that we can’t really verify cause the references aren’t there.

    They cite:
    msnbc.com
    toptenreviews.com
    alexa.com

    Get the f out of here.

    This is only useful as an example of creative presentation.

  30. Steve Morsa

    May 13th, 2007 at 7:07 am

    The internet has brought far more good to the world than is has bad.

    Sadly, one of the really disgusting things it’s also enabled is quick and easy access to pornography . . .

    Some would use the fact that it is so prevalent and easily accessible to attempt to buttress their argument that there’s nothing wrong with pornography with such misguided statements as “it’s really no big deal,” “no one’s getting hurt,” and “everyone’s doing (watching) it.”

    Yet; since the dawn of human civilization, it’s always been wrong.

    God never intended sex between people to be shared/viewed with/by others.

    It was wrong back when men slinked off to view it in xxx theaters behind their wives, girlfriends, and families backs . . .

    It was wrong when video tapes came along, enabling anyone with a VCR to view it . . .

    It is still wrong today, as people use the internet to view (and even participate in) it . . .

    Technology does not turn bad into good . . . or wrong into right.

    Never has.

    Never will.

    . . . and those who claim to “just be reporting on something that should be reported on” ; when that “reporting” includes naming and “analyzing” actual specific operating sites and companies; do a terrible thing by (implicitly if not explicitly) legitimizing something that should not–and cannot–be legitimized.

  31. Jay

    May 13th, 2007 at 7:58 am

    Steve Morsa is probably watching porn right now…

  32. Fabian

    May 13th, 2007 at 8:26 am

    I was going to make some smart arsh comment about puritanism, etc etc etc, and how puritans or new-puritans have double standards, etc etc etc … hey … I just made my comment ;)

    In any case. The numbers in the video, fortunately or not, do not lie. They have been more less the same for the last couple of years. The US us by far the biggest producer of porn however, Germany, England, Sweden and Japan produce the majority of really hard core porn; the US produces a good chunk of hard core, but … proportionally speaking it falls behind.

    And the video … regardless of what moral sensitivities and cords may strike, it is really well made.

  33. John Smith

    May 13th, 2007 at 8:47 am

    Mike, you are totally wrong about the porn industry being slow to web2.0. Voyeurweb is one of the most web2.0 sites in the world and figured out how to get peer review and voting, UGC et al TO MAKE MONEY 5 years ago.

    I am A VC based in Europe. I watch the porn industry very closely (note the inclusion of the word “industry” there), as i have long believed that whilst they don’t have more techical expertise or innovation foresight that other industries, what they do have is un-flinching focus on making money which I wish more of the web entrepreneurs I meet do.

    It’s just, I don’t tell anyone this in public for fear of the obvious….

  34. sam

    May 13th, 2007 at 9:28 am

    any figures that are used to describe the overall size, of financial heft of the porn industry should be taken with a seriously large grain of salt.

    gov’t figures are way off, as the gov’t wants to make the pron industry this huge thing in order to justify funding/approaches/laws to shut it down.. if it’s really large, we need lots of money to go after this big problem… if it was small, who’d care!!

    there are no public porn companies of any great size… therefore, the majority of porn businesses inflate their numbers like crazy…

    a number of years ago. i had to attempt to do an indepth analysis of the porn industry. i couldn’t come close to the numbers that were being thrown around…

    the porn industry is responsible for a large amount of internet traffic, and there are a huge number of adult/adult related sites. however, the industry as a whole doesn’t really translate into actual revenues at the levels that are being tossed around.

    the porn industry still wants to effectively get the customer to give up the dollar as fast as possible, while giving the cheapest content. at the same time, the industry has to deal with thre same issues that plague other online/conttent based businesses. content theft, chargebacks, not to mention the fact that the credit card industry shuns the business, making it increasingly hard to figure out how to allow the customer to pay!!

    it appears the more successful businesses are in the areas of putting people together, the social networking play.. and the very high end sites/operations like vivid.

    so, take any/all numbers with a huge cynical viewpoint.

    peace

  35. patricia

    May 13th, 2007 at 10:35 am

    subscription based, high quality softer porn will probably be a viable business in the future, like Spice Channel, etc on traditional cable. If I were in the porn industry, i’d make that play.

    i’m not familiar with the space, but my impression of online porn/sites overall is that they’re pretty haphazzard and grungy/dirty. i could see there being a market for a more sophisticated experience, like a Spice Channel.

  36. Pocahontas is Hot

    May 13th, 2007 at 10:58 am

    Steve Morsa: This is a big affirmation about what God intends or not; could you substantiate it ?

  37. John

    May 13th, 2007 at 11:26 am

    There is some reason to doubt the stats. Alexa says that adultfriendfinder.com is ranked #76. That’s high but not top 10.

  38. Paul

    May 13th, 2007 at 11:48 am

    I work for a very large ISP and some of the “adult” oriented websites have HUGE dedicated Internet pipes. Even if the figures are off, there is no shortage of money in that business.

  39. In the know

    May 13th, 2007 at 12:08 pm

    Based on what I’ve seen, sites like Flickr, Technorati, Digg, Delicious, and other “Web 2.0″ site have serious amounts of pornographic related traffic.

    But no one wants to report about that…

    Maybe someday the website measurement companies will release statistics on the influence of porn on Web 2.0 sites.

    Or maybe Techcrunch will investigate and get some answers…

  40. Jay

    May 13th, 2007 at 1:35 pm

    89% of porn is produced in the US? I thought Japan was the bigger producer.-

  41. Munleymun

    May 13th, 2007 at 4:54 pm

    I take issue with the following:

    “Over the last couple of years, many of the new ideas around web applications, like user generated content, video sharing, etc., went mainstream first and are now hitting the porn sites.”

    Porn doesn’t continue to introduce new technologies (burn to DVD technology, for example), but of course they’ve been slow on the web 2.0 uptick. Why would any porn company in their right mind knowlingly contribute to the free distrubution and viewing of their own product? Porn profits margins are razor thin as it is. Most of the content that can be found on these sites are either advertisements for other pornograpy or pirated scenes. The creators don’t see a dime.

    “Truly interesting statistics, I guess they forgot this, women earn much money than men in the sex industry.”

    In the short term, yes. But the average male performer’s career is substantially longer than the average female. Generally, performers last no longer than two years. Guys can go for decades.

    And to all those bitching about the lack of hard statistics: Those will NEVER exist. This video simply went with numbers that MSNBC got from AVN (the leading adult trade magazine). Because almost every adult company is private (save Playboy and Penthouse) hard numbers are impossible to produce. This is the best estimate they’ve come up with.

    I’m a fan of the video.

  42. Munleymun

    May 13th, 2007 at 4:57 pm

    Wow. Typo City. My apologies.

  43. Tantowi

    May 13th, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    Porn Addiction? Reasons Why To Quit Today

    -Less Debt – Porn may start out free but once hooked you spend money. The porn industry gets richer and you get poorer. Think about one thing you would like to own. Would you be willing to let go of your porn addiction to get it?

    -Time – How much time does your addiction steal from you, your friends and family? What area of your life suffers the most because you don’t give it your undivided attention? Freedom from porn can change that.

    -Your Life – The porn industry owns you. If you don’t believe me try quitting. You probably have hundreds of times. You are 100% responsible for your life Don’t waste it. You deserve the best life has to offer. Go get it!

  44. Turbovolver

    May 13th, 2007 at 6:13 pm

    People who think women don’t look at porn = out of touch retards.

    These numbers sound like BS.

  45. Kalid

    May 13th, 2007 at 6:51 pm

    Hi all, I’ve put the numbers in more malleable format here

    http://tinyurl.com/29jwge

    in case you’d like to understand the nature of stats. 260 sites/day is about 95k sites/year, for example.

  46. Shaun Apple

    May 13th, 2007 at 10:30 pm

    Makes me want to turn my web site Love Across Borders into a porn site.

  47. Steve

    May 13th, 2007 at 11:46 pm

    Pornotube? YouPorn is much better.

  48. Ad

    May 14th, 2007 at 10:04 am

    I may have missed a reference elsewhere, but does anyone know the tune used as the backing?

  49. Jim

    May 14th, 2007 at 1:02 pm

    The other 28% might not just be women. Could be chimps and tigers and the like

  50. Jake Battey

    May 14th, 2007 at 8:38 pm

    @ Tantowi

    That is the weakest argument I’ve ever read. Using your logic, kids shouldn’t be collecting baseball cards, or coins, or stamps even. Old ladies shouldn’t knit. Anything you do takes time and money. Ass.

  51. Dan

    May 15th, 2007 at 2:35 am

    Shame they misspelled Malaysia… mind you, if it was my job to write on a hot chick i probably would have got flustered and spelled it “Please can I spunk on your tits?”

  52. DngloZ

    May 15th, 2007 at 8:22 am

    emm i think this is underestimated! I believe the numbers are much MUCH higher than these…

  53. Rachel

    May 16th, 2007 at 8:02 am

    If you’re like me, you don’t appreciate your boyfriend’s porn habits. Here’s how I learned to deal: http://listafterlist.com/tabid.....raphy.aspx

  54. Heather Paquinas

    May 16th, 2007 at 10:19 pm

    Wait a minute, isn’t homeclips a user-generated porn site?

  55. blam

    May 19th, 2007 at 8:50 am

    And too think it will double, triple, etc.

    Whoa.

  56. Martin

    June 2nd, 2007 at 3:20 am

    Internet Porn is going to have a lifespan roughly equivalent the that of the TV sitcom, in around 50 years people will get tried of it and move on to something else. I’m thinking stone tablets.

  57. M

    June 9th, 2007 at 5:55 am

    Pfft…
    2.8 billion a year? MS does that about every week…
    And that’s only ONE company. (A dictatorial one, BTW.)

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