CE Companies Ambivalent About Targeting the Porn Industry

Last week in Las Vegas, Creative showed its new inPerson videoconferencing system to receptive crowds -- not just at the Consumer Electronics Show, but also the Adult Entertainment Expo next door.

"We're exploring a new opportunity," said Nick Darnell, who manned the Creative booth at AEE. "It's undeniably a huge market."

inPerson is a self-contained WiFi video conferencing system that requires no PC. You can use the built-in 7-inch LCD to see your talk-mate, or connect the unit to a TV or projector for a bigger display.

The portable $700 device requires a subscription to the inPerson network ($10 per month). Darnell explained, "If you're paying people money to do something for you, you want to make sure you have a stable network," which the service apparently provides.

At AEE, I videoconferenced with "Jenny from Texas," and the video quality was pretty poor. Perhaps it was all the WiFi in the building. (With prompting from Darnell, Jenny said she would vote for Ron Paul for president, but wasn't sure she was a libertarian.)

I also conferenced with the Creative folks at CES, who complained bitterly that Darnell got the AEE gig, while they were stuck in the CES booth.

Creative was proud to tout its new product at AEE. "There's no sense in ignoring an opportunity," Darnell said. "We've been a pioneer in many different fields, but we just started doing this [AEE]. We're going everywhere with this product."

Another CE-oriented vendor, LaserMagic Productions, also enjoyed its first stint at AEE, demonstrating the same 3D screen that was used in Minority Report. "We had been told that perhaps people in the adult video arena might be interested in using this in their shoots," a LaserMagic spokesperson said.

The screen gives a 3D effect to images that are projected on a black background. It can be used with both front and rear projectors.

AEE for the Timid, too

Other CE vendors were painfully shy about exhibiting at AEE. One exhibitor, demonstrating a digital media adapter, begged us not to use the company's "real" name or the names of the booth personnel. At AEE the exhibitor called itself PCtoTV, but the corporation actually is a prominent silicon vendor whose technology can be found in digital media adapters from name-brand CE vendors.

A woman at the booth said that top company officials had religious inclinations that were not consistent with the porn industry.

Booth personnel at Force 10 -- a provider of network infrastructure products -- also declined to provide their names once they learned that I was a member of the press.

One worker said there was a "good revenue stream" in the porn industry, and that he was using the show to network with the XXX movie studios.

There was another vendor of networking products at AEE, but beyond these handful of technology-oriented companies, the showfloor was still dominated by film houses and toys of a different variety.

Porn is said to generate up to $100 billion in worldwide revenue, and the industry is a major influencer on consumer technologies. It is said that the porn industry determined the Betamax/VHS victory, and it may well do the same with HD DVD and Blu-ray.

So why don't more CE companies exhibit at AEE? Certainly not for a lack of volunteers to work the show.