Newest Industry

No, this is not a shameless attempt to drive me to the top of the rankings. It is a legitimate comment on a quiet little secret of the new Google Video Search.

Google co-founder Larry Page has announced that the company wants the public to send in its homemade videos – and he doesn’tÂ’t mind how naughty they are.

“There might be an adult section, or something like that. I don’t think that is going to be a big issue,” Page told attendees at the National Cable and Telecommunications Show in San Francisco on Monday, where he was speaking on a panel.

Ouch! John Cheesman points out the HR nightmare that this will pose.

Then again, Google is just admitting what no other respectable online firm will: Internet porn is a huge untapped market for services.

Porn has been the innovator in the internet. It was the Commercial Internet for a long time. But none of the Web services firms are willing to approach or admit that they have major online adult entertainment companies as clients.

As a Web measurement geek, I have always seen this niche as a gold mine. Adult entertainment sites live or die on Web performance. Developers for adult sites are able to push the limits and demand more from their applications. They want to know where and how people connect to their site. They need to optimize their code and image/streaming delivery like few other sites do.

It’s time to get off the ivory tower and accept that adult entertainment could drive the online services revenue opportunity for a long time to come.