The troubles for the porn studios began with a technology called BitTorrent, introduced in 2001, which made it easy for people to share data files over the Internet. This technology provided the world with unlimited free music, much to the dismay of the giant music publishers. But it was still somewhat clunky. If you wanted to watch a video, you had to download it, which took time and ate up space on your hard drive. By 2005, the BitTorrent technology gave way to something more manageable and user-friendly: streaming video. This technology was used early and heavily by sites with names like PornHub, Xvideos, and YouPorn. Suddenly, anybody who wanted to watch a clip could do so almost instantly. You clicked on a video and it played in the browser: no more waiting, no more downloading. This simple innovation has demolished the porn industry's traditional way of doing business. Porn tube sites are now among the most visited websites in the world. According to the online measurement company Alexa, PornHub holds a worldwide traffic rank of 54. Xvideos is at number 53, and YouPorn is at number 64. The threat comes from the sheer ease of uploading content--anyone's content--onto a site and then drawing users to view it. Most tubes describe themselves as aggregators of "user-generated content," but the material they publish is much broader--many video clips are created, paid for, and owned by porn studios.
The troubles for the porn studios began with a technology called BitTorrent, introduced in 2001, which made it easy for people to share data files over the Internet. This technology provided the world with unlimited free music, much to the dismay of the giant music publishers. But it was still somewhat clunky. If you wanted to watch a video, you had to download it, which took time and ate up space on your hard drive.
By 2005, the BitTorrent technology gave way to something more manageable and user-friendly: streaming video. This technology was used early and heavily by sites with names like PornHub, Xvideos, and YouPorn. Suddenly, anybody who wanted to watch a clip could do so almost instantly. You clicked on a video and it played in the browser: no more waiting, no more downloading.
This simple innovation has demolished the porn industry's traditional way of doing business. Porn tube sites are now among the most visited websites in the world. According to the online measurement company Alexa, PornHub holds a worldwide traffic rank of 54. Xvideos is at number 53, and YouPorn is at number 64. The threat comes from the sheer ease of uploading content--anyone's content--onto a site and then drawing users to view it. Most tubes describe themselves as aggregators of "user-generated content," but the material they publish is much broader--many video clips are created, paid for, and owned by porn studios.
And porn-starved consumers are just as interested in viewer's wives as they are in the 'real thing.'
It's an international tragedy for porn's previously stellar production values.
But I do like the irony of organised crime's porn divisions being put out of business by cheap camcorders and broadband.
According to the online measurement company Alexa, PornHub holds a worldwide traffic rank of 54.
... among people who use Alexa.
Who does that?
So, what's your favorite site? Mine's ... In the end, might makes right. Nothing has changed since the caveman.
