|
'Xpeeps is a porn MySpace'
11/01/2007 21:32 - (SA)
Las Vegas - Porn makers at the world's largest sex trade show in Las Vegas were taking a page from internet superstars such as YouTube by tapping into the power of social networking.
Fresh young start-ups at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo weren't just saucy women in scanty outfits; they were fledgling internet companies putting erotic spins on YouTube, MySpace and reality television show websites.
A pornographic version of MySpace called xpeeps.com went online in a beta test format eight months ago, said spokesperson Daniel Fairchild.
It has proven a success and the finished version will go live this week, he said.
Like its mainstream role model, xpeeps has chat rooms, forums and even job listings for people with adult entertainment in mind, said Fairchild.
"Xpeeps is a porn MySpace," Fairchild told AFP.
"Take out the drama; take out the children and add sex and you have xpeeps. It's cool for adults, obviously."
The website is an online community for porn industry professionals, amateurs, and fans.
'We opened it up'
The North Carolina company also launched a "porn version of YouTube" called PornoTube six months ago, said Fairchild.
PornoTube has rocketed into the top 20 websites when it comes to the number of online visitors, according to statistics from industry research firm Alexis.
"YouTube turned off anything naked," said Fairchild. "We opened it up."
Relaxx Entertainment recruited young women from MySpace to be in a "MySpace Invaders" interactive porn CD that also links viewers to the performers' pages on the popular social website.
"We invaded MySpace to do it, thus the title," said Tom Ashley of two-year-old Relaxx.
"It took a while for the girls to think it was real. They get this kind of stuff all the time."
The 20 women in the video were paid from $150 to $500, depending on what they did on camera, said Ashley.
The CD will be sold internationally via the internet beginning in two weeks, he added.
A trio of estate agents turned online reality porn entrepreneurs founded the company Wink and got their website going just two days before the start of the expo.
Cashing in on exploding market
"The property market went soft so we went for something hard," said Wink co-founder Brian Kavanagh.
"It's a site where girls troll around, pick up guys, throw them on a bed and take care of business."
The men and women pictured in the streaming video are people who were found on the internet and hired by Wink for performances, said a co-founder who went by the name "Mr N."
"We try for an amateur reality kind of thing," Mr N told AFP.
Wink charges a monthly subscription and was expanding into selling "porn clothes for porn people" online, said Kavanagh.
Shirtless men with chiselled frames encouraged promised attendees that scintillating male action video was streamed in broadband glory at www.NakedSword.com.
MovieMonster and U-Rent were among the array of websites peddling online sales or rentals of adult videos, and a service that mailed people porn-movie DVDs rented online dubbed itself "the NetFlix of porn".
PPV Networks used the opening day of the expo to unveil a new platform for pay-per-view video-on-demand (VOD) websites to cash in on the exploding market.
"The trend is to online distribution and VOD," said a representative from adult VOD website firm Yappo.com. "The brick-and-mortar stores are out of it."
- AFP
|
