Technology and Porn Go Together Like Peanut Butter and KY Jelly

Earlier this month the adult industry's 23rd Annual AVN Awards Show, the adult equivalent of the Oscars was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The emcee and host of the event, Greg Fitzsimmons focused on the symbiotic relationship between the Internet and pornography. "The Internet was completely funded by porn," he said from the stage of the 23rd annual AVN Awards Show. And if it wasn't for the Internet, he added, "you guys would be completely out of business". The entire audience, consisting of porn actors and adult entertainment magnates, like Jenna Jameson and Larry Flynt, roared with laughter. Fitzsimmons' joke isn't fiction. According to the Washington Post, online pornography, a $2.5 billion business and growing rapidly, pioneered such now-commonplace practices as streaming video, trading files and making online purchases. By comparison, sales of music downloads totaled $1.1 billion last year.


A common joke in IT is that every new technology is driven by porn. Think about the consumer technological advances that have porn applications: Digital cameras, the rapid spread of the VCR and later DVD players and recorders, which gives people the option to watch porn at home instead of going to the local Cine-porn movie house with all of the other real deviants. Although a lot of mainstream companies like Real Networks and Google earn some revenue from online porn, it's hard to verify. Mainstream companies almost never specify how much money they earn from the skin trade because they don't like to talk about it. It's obviously a huge, huge market, but mum's the word. The Porn industry has acted as kind a technology incubator for much of the technology that we're using now for less risque purposes. For instance, online "streaming video" is one major example of a technology that was driven by porn in its early days. While Hollywood is still struggling with how best to put its movies online, entire porn empires have been built by production companies selling streaming-video programs on the Internet.

The next hot technology that is being adopted by the Porn industry is mobile video. As soon as Adult Entertainment companies heard that iPod went video, the gears and pinions in their filthy, tech-saavy minds started to turn. We will most likely have the Porn industry to thank for working all of the kinks (no pun intended) out of mobile video technology.

FYI -- if any of you were wondering, The award for Best Screenplay- Video went to Camp Cuddly Pines Powertool Massacre starring Stormy Daniels, Jonathan Morgan & August Warwick produced and distributed by Wicked Pictures.

Jenna Jameson won Crossover Star of the Year.

Matt "Beef Swellington" Largo