Bill Tancer’s Time magazine column “FaceBook: More Popular Than Porn” highlights the rise in popularity of social networks and the decline of porn amongst Gen Y. All the online chatter is keeping young people engaged in interpersonal intercourse (the dialogue, not the sexual variety).
Visits to porn sites have dropped from 16.9% of all site visits in the U.S. in October 2005 to 11.9% as of last week, a 33% decline. Currently, for web users over the age of 25, Adult Entertainment still ranks high in popularity, coming in second, after search engines. Not so for 18- to 24-year-olds, for whom social networks rank first, followed by search engines, then web-based e-mail — with porn sites lagging behind in fourth. If you chart the rate of visits to social-networking sites against those to adult sites over the last two years, there appears to be a strong negative correlation (i.e., visits to social networks go up as visits to adult sites go down).
Playboy Enterprises might have jumped on the online community train at just the right time. This summer, Playboy partnered with build-an-online-community-yourself Ning and to launch PlayboyU, which is a branded site for college students. Exclusively available to college students with a .edu address, Playboy U is an “non-nude social network” that doesn’t seem all that different from what MySpace or FaceBook offers: profiles, blogs, events calendars, groups, forums, quizzes. The one nifty feature is a set of dedicated profile pages for individual univerisities.
Given the greater frequency with which hiring managers check out perspective employees on social networking sites, perhaps a community like PlayboyU will allow college students to act up behind a curtain of privacy. No authorities are getting invites..though I’m sure a few questionable professors or teaching assistants will squeeze on through with their .edu addresses.
Playboy does take advantage of the advertising opportunities with Playboy news and calendar items to keep Playboy’s brand name front and center. Will this site prove to be a gateway to increased Playboy branded spending by site users or just maintain brand awareness?
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