Natural porn killers

A list went around the Internet some years ago, citing the 10 scariest things one can say. The one that stayed with me: "I`m TRYING to stop!" I can add another one after reading recent rumours about the demise of the print porn industry (which are probably greatly exaggerated) at the hands of its online brothers: "I`m TRYING to kill it!"

The remarkable agility of online business, which has long threatened bricks and mortar enterprise, has never been so amply illustrated as in online porn.

Carel Alberts, Journalist, ITWeb

The disquieting truth is that the porn industry is a shape-shifter; a balloon filled with water. Try to put the squeeze on these creeps - if you`re not too squeamish, that is - and they`ll pop out in some technological leadership disfiguration somewhere else.

But back to print porn going belly-up. AP recently reported on bankruptcy filings by two adult magazine publishers. One, Al Goldstein, is the publisher of a restructuring Screw magazine, and another, Bob Guccione, likewise filed for "Chapter 11" bankruptcy protection for his offering, General Media. The company`s trademark Penthouse magazine continues publishing while it restructures.

Goldstein was erudite enough for a man of basic instincts: "We are an anachronism; we are dinosaurs; we are elephants going to the bone cemetery to die. The delivery system has changed, and we have to change with it if we want to survive."

For those interested in the murky depths of porn publishing philosophy, here`s why it happened: "Purveyors of adult fare must expand beyond traditional publishing methods to survive," AP quotes Samir Husni of the University of Mississippi`s journalism school as pontificating. "The magazine may remain the cornerstone for the name brand, but in the future, the real money will be made elsewhere. Hundreds of new adult Web sites launch every month, compared to 30 new sex magazines all of last year. That`s one magazine category that really can`t compete with the Internet and television. Sex has become [that] much [of] a mainstream entity."

The remarkable agility of online business, which has long threatened bricks and mortar enterprise, has never been so amply illustrated as in online porn. This industry has taught other online firms many valuable lessons over the years, and it`s only fair that those of its own ilk now count among some of its victims.

But online porn hasn`t only put less nimble opponents out of business. It also pointed the technological way for others.

In the distant year of 1997, Washington Post columnist John Schwartz, a true visionary in my opinion, wrote: "But when it comes to technology, porn serves as something of a pioneer, breaking ground that will eventually serve mainstream uses as they overtake the sexual ones. When that transformation takes place on the Internet, many of the success stories will owe an unspoken debt to the lessons learned by the pornographers."

Here are some of the innovations, as enumerated by Dana Blankenhorn, of a site called Clickz. Blankenhorn feels it necessary to explain why he`s interested in the porn industry, but he evidently has very good reasons as an online scout. "The porn market is usually a leader in developing technology and business models," he agrees. "[Porn] merchants pioneered the profitable use of VCRs, CD-ROMs and the Web. They`ve sold content at a profit, created their own streaming technologies, and are often the 'secret sauce` behind portal balance sheets.

"If you`re still not convinced this is a valid exercise, consider this. The industry...hit the wall on the issue of credit card charge-backs two years before other merchants and pioneered business models for streaming data to PDAs like the Palm Pilot."

That`s quite a mouthful. Porn is also credited with the noble pursuit of by-passing spam filters, technology for making file-sharing services work with paid content and have more than once served as scapegoats and "first" defendants in landmark court cases.

Goldstein and others may be playing second fiddle to online porn right now, but then they can always just get up again and come back for more.

In short, never underestimate the cunning of a slime bag. If you believed that print porn, at least, has had its chips, consider Goldstein`s words on planning his comeback title: "It`s going to be dirtier and filthier than ever."