The tenets of Web 2.0 are not without their pornographic, or otherwise erotic, applications. We’ve covered PornoTube and EroShare, both of which are sites for user-generated porn. Now we’ve come across a site called Boobik? (yes, with a question mark in its name, and no, NSFW). If PornoTube is a YouTube of porn and EroShare is a Flickr of porn, then perhaps it’s best to describe Boobik? as a Twitter of porn.
To be fair, Boobik? doesn’t explicitly bill itself as a place for sharing user-generated pornography. Rather, it places the emphasis on social networking (the Facebook of porn?):
boobik is a place to meet people the sexy way.
You can get to know people through them sharing and broadcasting short experiences, thoughts and fantasies. By that we mean what they did last night, just now (hand in skirt under the desk), with whom and how many times). And don’t forget them pictures as well…
But the result, I imagine, will be mostly just to share pornographic material with others. The site’s frontpage shows a series of microblog posts, some of which contain photos with nudity. You can post text, photos, and video embeds with Boobik?, apparently of any rating level (the terms of service doesn’t preclude explicit material).
Want to share erotic thoughts on the go? You can also post to the site from a mobile phone, IM account, or email.
Online porn is usually a cutting edge industry and it is always all about the money. The industry is often first to the Internet with new features that eventually trickle down to mainstream consumer sites.
The latest wave of web innovation, though, was centered squarely on consumer sites. And the porn guys have adapted many of those features to create massively successful second generation adult content sites. PornoTube was the first we came across, in mid 2006. Others, like EroShare, have followed. We also mentioned Red Light District, a virtual world, in a recent roundup post.
Go2Web2 has just posted a roundup of some additional ones. Some of these have fantastic names – MegaRotic, Fantasti.cc, NippleByte, and StumblePorn, for example.
Many of these sites are little more than lead generation tools for more traditional porn sites (and if you are going to visit them, put on some protection first). But it is fascinating to see the industry try anything new to get new money in. Lots of competition and lots of money drive all of this.
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.
What better way to ring in the new year than with a site that is most definitely not work safe. Eroshare is to Flickr what PornoTube is to YouTube – user generated porn. The site, which launched an hour ago, encourages users to upload their home made erotic photos, and there is already a bunch of content on the site. EroShare gives 2 GB of free storage with every account and has all the standard photo site bells and whistles – friends, tagging, albums, etc. Eroshare is based – where else – in the Netherlands, and has not yet raised any funding.
Porn obviously continues to be a lucrative Internet business, and user generated stuff is apparently a healthy category if PornoTube’s growth is any indication. Just realize that the innocent photo you took with your boyfriend, girlfriend, ex-spouse or random stranger may very quickly end up in front of millions.
