Comments on: Klaas Verbeken “Porn as the backbone of technological innovation online”

By: Crab Rieker

Crab Rieker — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:09:00 +0000

Good story but I believe it is the tip of the iceberg. Innovation follows the corner of any industry where the money is flowing to. Look at what Playboy did for periodicals and written media in the 50′s, from distribution to writing. The vcr didn’t explode into every home until long after porn became available on vhs tapes, not to mention the dirty secret that vhs overtook the better quality beta tapes due to porn being available mostly on vhs. Like it or not, people put money into sex, and it’s that money that helps drives new technologies. It may not be solely porn doing the ground work, but the capital generated certainly makes it more possible.

By: Christian DE NEEF

Christian DE NEEF — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 13:03:01 +0000

I’m not convinced that the porn (or any other) industry is driving such a lot of innovation. There are other important industries driving IT innovation. Gaming for example. And probably the porn industry has also been following (and adopting) the new technologies. I think that with many industries and IT, there’s a balance between pull (when what the business wants gets developed) and push (when new IT innovation is available and gets adopted).

@cdn

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:38:03 +0000

It’s a mistake to state that sites like Youporn or Xvideo are user generated. Only a very small portion of the video’s shown are made by actual amateurs. Most of the material is made by traditional producers as advertisement for their sites or DVD’s.

By: Bas Bisseling

Bas Bisseling — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:15:57 +0000

Great topic Anne, I remember Network Cultures and their conference on ‘The Art and Politics of Netporn’ back in 2005 (the poster on the wall at Media Studies) and two years later the followup: ‘C’Lick Me’, the 2nd International Netporn Festival at the Paradiso. I didn’t watch the stream, but did Verbeken mentioned them in a way?