Jason Lee Miller of WebProNews has this absolute must-read post in the wake of Eliot Spitzer's stunning and swift fall from grace. Miller investigated the world of online prostitution businesses; in other words, prostitution businesses that have online presences.
Here's what he found:
The breadth, depth, and scope of prostitution available via online booking is staggering, indicating that just like the online porn industry, sex trade is not just a huge industry, but one that employs cutting edge marketing techniques, and one that apparently is thriving.
It's not clear how Spitzer connected with the Emperor's Club ring but as Miller documents, he may have simply conducted a Google search. Miller typed in "New York Call Girls," "Full Service Escorts," "models," and so forth and found an extraordinary abundance of sites willing to connect people with paid people. And these sites cover every city and every country in the world.
Some of the sites charge as little as $100 per hour for companionship (none use the word "prostitution" or any variation thereof and some explicitly state that payment is for companionship only) and some charge as much as $3,600 per hour, Emperor's Club territory. What's really interesting is that many of the sites are on the cutting-edge of Web 2.0 technology. They use flash, interactive calendars and elements of social networking.
These sites, as Miller notes, "have put a lot of effort and money into online marketing and seem to have mastered every element from site design, to search marketing, to social media, to vertical search and mapping." Well, we all know that any business that doesn't keep pace with web trends is doomed to fall behind. Even the world's oldest profession.
Although Time Warner Cable could lose video subscribers to its telco-based rivals, it is holding its own on the high-speed Internet front, particularly when it comes to Verizon's fiber-based FiOS service, according to company CFO Robert Marcus. Speaking today at Bear Stearns' annual media conference, Marcus said "The encouraging news for us there really is that where we've seen the FiOS [high-speed] product gain share, for the most part we’ve maintained or increased market share."
So, where are all of Verizon's FiOS broadband customers coming from? "They're taking share from DSL," according to Marcus.
Video competition, however, is another story. "I think it's fair to say we're going to lose video subs to both of those players {AT&T and Verizon} as they enter the market," Marcus said.
But right now the competitive impact is still contained by the limited video deployment footprints of the two telcos. "The competition is still on the moderate side. Between FiOS and Uverse we're seeing 10% of our homes passed being marketed to."
Posted by Cynthia Brumfield at 12:50 PM | Print | Comments (0)
Blogs We Read
