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Mobile content - it’s not just porn you know

Mainly porn admittedly…

3GSM Content on mobiles is what most mobile companies hope and believe will offset falling revenues from voice calls. The great hopes for mobile content are sport, games and what the industry calls "erotica", and you would call porn. So we talked to some content providers at 3GSM about what people are actually consuming now.

Evgeny Kosolapov, general manager at United Fun Traders, which markets mobile content from three Russian companies, said: “The markets are different in western and eastern Europe but the trends are the same. Games are more successful right now because of screen size and the times you use it. A game you play many times but a video you probably only watch once – unless it's erotica.”

Mobilestreams (which floated on AIM this morning) CFO Jitesh Sodha, said: “In terms of what people are actually doing now, music is huge and games are in second place. Graphics and animations and comedy do well too. But I think we will also see different kinds of content – a new medium creates new media.”

But Sodha was less convinced that mobile TV, the “big story” of the show, is ready to roll. Sodha said: “Mobile TV is here but some things need to happen. 3G networks have capacity issues – you can’t have 5m people all watching TV via your network. But consumers definitely want TV on their phones.”

Unfortunately, porn providers were a little coy when approached by The Register. One “adult” content company agreed to talk, but modestly requested anonymity. He stressed that “adult” was more than just porn – violent video games and gambling also get an honourable mention.

He said: “We have to make sure the right people get the content, but what we are doing now is what all operators will have to do to deal with content, not just erotica.”

Our source does not believe regional differences are very strong. He said the difference was operator to operator – “We can sell to one and cross the street to talk to the other and they are not interested – they’re too conservative.”

In terms of the importance of smut in driving the market, our source said: “Look at it historically over the last 200 years – the press, cameras, VHS and even DVDs – a few years ago the only DVDs you could buy were erotica.”

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