Adult sites in decline? 27 Apr 2007

The Economist reports that traffic to social-networking sites like MySpace, Bebo and Facebook will soon overtake traffic to adult sites.

Many will see this as a sign that the internet is maturing. After all, every new media - from photography to video to satellite television - starts life as a haven for porn; the balance only shifting towards more socially acceptable content once mass adoption is achieved. However, this transition is unlikely to have taken place in the online world at this point in time. What is more likely, is that much of the pornographic content of old has simply moved from dedicated adult sites and begun to permeate the new social networking / community / chat sites (thereby causing the former's fall in popularity and the latter's almost inversely-proportional rise). It is well-known that Second Life's virtual economy, for example, was built on the back of adult content and related economic transactions.

[via vi-R-us]