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Mobile phones get new XXX-tras
Friday, June 21 2002
by Ralph Averbuch


Last week Nokia began to roll out another in its line of mobile phones -- nothing
extraordinary, you'd think, except that for the first time, a camera is built-in.

Then again, convergence seems to be unavoidable these days. We're now seeing all
sorts of consumer and business devices that purport to be 'catch all' products.
We've got digital cameras with audio capabilities or video recorders which can
e-mail clips to friends using Bluetooth. But the Nokia is truly different because
it marks a watershed in the evolution of the mobile phone.



That's because mobile handsets are literally ubiquitous today. Go to any major or
minor town and you'll be hard pushed not to see someone walking towards you with
their ear glued to a phone.



Now Nokia's 7650 comes along and before you know it we'll all be taking pictures
and send them winging through the ether to our nearest and dearest. Correct?
Well, possibly.



Perhaps a more cynical and, I suspect, realistic scenario is that this new
handset heralds the move of porn from a Web page into someone's pocket.



There are two things that lead me to this conclusion. First, the Web as we know
it today, including all of its e-commerce functionality, was pioneered by the
world of porn. One lady known as Danni, having made her multimillions in porn
on-line, is in huge demand now on the lecture circuit, advising senior executives
of blue-chip companies on how to e-enable their businesses.



Second, with the emergence of the handheld camcorder in the early 80s, all the
companies producing the hardware were showing ads of friends skiing down
mountains and saving those cherished moments on tape for posterity. The reality
was somewhat different, with a boom in amateur pornography. 



Using the new multimedia messaging (MMS) function people will be able to send
fairly low resolution (176x208) pictures to other MMS handsets or SMS a link to a
Web page where someone without a capable phone can go see it.



And this is where one suspects the networks truly see an opportunity to squeeze a
little more blood from the stone. It is, it seems, pretty unlikely that the great
unwashed masses are about to rush to buy 3G phones, even if they were available.
That's because the networks have huge costs to recoup, taking the technology
beyond the fiscal grasp of your average punter.



However, mobile network operators know how easy it is to extract money from
people's accounts with SMS. Each day tens of millions of short text messages fly
across the globe, generating serious amounts of income for the networks. So it
isn't hard to see where MMS comes into their thinking. Richer content, such as
picture-sending, equals bigger charges, equals more money. 



And unlike an expensive-to-set-up 3G network, it is relatively straightforward
for the mobile companies to enable their existing networks to handle MMS
messaging services. Better still, there are no apparent up-front costs to the
consumer as people will only perceive the additional cost after they receive
their next bill.



So what if porn goes mobile -- is that really such a bad thing? Well, that
depends on your point of view. If you, like me, are a libertarian at heart, then
you won't much care what someone else does for kicks. And no one ever said we
should get rid of stamps or the postal service because they're used to send porn
by post.



Of course, with MMS the reality may be a little more complex. With all the issues
surrounding junk e-mail in our in-boxes, often of a decidedly salacious nature,
how long is it before your new MMS phone bleeps for you to find that you've just
received some unsolicited phone-porn? It will also bring a whole new perspective
to the concept of nuisance calls.



Let's hope it's the caller, and not the recipient, who always pays!