It seems that porn business pushed technology for e-payments and data storage/transfer:
http://www.enterprisefeatures.com/2011/06/ten-indispensable-...
I have no idea if now they are frontiers of innovation.
Ask HN: Are there any innovative startups in the porn/adult industry?
11–20 of 136 posts
Re: Ask HN: Are there any innovative startups in the porn/adult industry?
#12VR porn is a new area with difficult problems to solve.
I think that there's opportunity in teledildonics as well.
If it wasn't for it being, well, teledildonics, I'd be interested in pursuing it.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any innovative startups in the porn/adult industry?
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's another data point confirming the "regular world" issues you mention: http://recode.net/2014/10/17/its-hard-out-there-for-a-sex-to...
Rybchin said she suspects it has something to do with tech being dominated by men, who might be nervous about working with a sex-toy startup: “All these companies are run by men, and they don’t appreciate a woman’s pleasure.” I don't know whether this really is the underlying issue, but damn, it's unfortunate how plausible it is. And the reaction from Stripe to the reporter's request for comment all but confirms.
IMHO the problem is not that men "don't appreciate a woman's pleasure" - that is some serious bullshit in my opinion. Most men love it when their SO enjoys sex.
The problem (to me) is the criminalization of porn and prostitution in the US. Just think about what kind of outrage it would cause if Stripe had a single prostitute or porn website use their service to receive payments. (For the sake of argument assume the prostitute is located in a jurisdiction that does not prohibit the practice, IIRC it is allowed in parts of Nevada)
Now Stripe gets flack for being overly cautious - there's just no way to do this without provoking a shit storm from one group.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any innovative startups in the porn/adult industry?
#14http://faploid.com has been in beta a long time but it's gotten awards. Hopefully it works out soon.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any innovative startups in the porn/adult industry?
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's another data point confirming the "regular world" issues you mention: http://recode.net/2014/10/17/its-hard-out-there-for-a-sex-to...
Rybchin said she suspects it has something to do with tech being dominated by men, who might be nervous about working with a sex-toy startup: “All these companies are run by men, and they don’t appreciate a woman’s pleasure.” I don't know whether this really is the underlying issue, but damn, it's unfortunate how plausible it is. And the reaction from Stripe to the reporter's request for comment all but confirms.
I think men are just wary of being seen as creeps. At a recent job search lecture at my uni we were told to never have a picture on your CV, with this as example of how it goes wrong: "Let's say you're a beautiful woman and you send a company your CV with pic on it. Now, the reviewer of your CV is male and if he asks you in for an interview the other employees at the company might suggest he did it because of the way you look. The reviewer will avoid this awkward situation by throwing your CV in the trash. Do not have a picture on your CV."
Basically, the expectations of a modern man's sexuality are pretty fucked up and contradictory and most prefer to avoid the entire thing in public.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any innovative startups in the porn/adult industry?
#16Porn sites are janky, unpolished, often half-broken, and prone to suddenly disappearing as quickly as they appeared.
This is what innovation looks like.
I think they are the definition of innovation in online content delivery of any kind. Live video streams, monetizing content, creating minor internet celebrities who can live off of their online work, confronting head-on issues of privacy and censorship. All of these things and more came far earlier in internet porn than anywhere else, and theres a good chance that whatever edge they're struggling with will be where the rest of tech finds itself shortly thereafter.
It's like graffiti in the subway as a precursor to ads for HSBC. It may be grimy, but they have nothing to lose so there's a good chance what they're doing is a brilliant move.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any innovative startups in the porn/adult industry?
#17Cindy Gallop's "Make Love Not Porn" ( http://www.makelovenotporn.com ) is trying to solve some of the issues around the rise of Internet pornography (addiction, detachment from intimacy, unrealistic/degrading portrayal of women, etc). She's approaching it from a great, sex-positive way but is having issues whenever the company touches the "regular world" - hard to get funding, taken seriously by non-adult industry pe…
I read a really enlightening article on the challenges that "adult" startups face when they try to do things the legitimate way[0] (as opposed to using underhanded, duplicitous, and/or legally questionable tactics).
It's rather sad that these startups are essentially punished for not wanting to deceive their business partners about what they do. It sheds a lot of light on why the adult industry ends up with a rather sleazy reputation - it's not because everyone who wants to go into the sex industry wants to be sleazy. If anything, it's that the ones who want to conduct business honestly are discouraged or driven out.
[0] http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/sextech-startups-in-a-hos...
Re: Ask HN: Are there any innovative startups in the porn/adult industry?
#18What are you looking for, innovative content delivery, production style, search technology, payment schemes? What problems for example? All the main video sites you go to are startups that are trying to innovate and make money. Porn is a very competitive industry. Pornhub and redtube for example are innovative startups it's just hard to amit it to ourselves because they are peddling smut.
Their websites are horrible, though, and the content is pretty meh.
Threshold of achieving minimum customer satisfaction is also very very low - for the most part you just need to show nakedness and the problem is solved :)
Tough industry. Hard to break out of a niche.
Re: Ask HN: Are there any innovative startups in the porn/adult industry?
#19[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Are there any innovative startups in the porn/adult industry?
#20VR porn is a new area with difficult problems to solve.
Given my new position at my workplace, I now have access to all sorts of gadgets and tech stuff. One thing I've been playing with is a EEG headset with Oculus Rift. My initial idea is to utilize brain patterns with Oculus content to increase certain emotions. For example, when one is playing Doom 3, the monsters come out closer and scarier when you are already frightened. Or if you're bored, nothing happens to try to…
EEG is a mess of noise - it's easy to determine things like 'up', 'down', 'left', and 'right'. If you're really precise (user isn't moving very much and has one of those caps that uses electro-gel) you can infer activations of certain parts of the brain, however i don't know how correlated they'd be to non-strong emotions like boredom.