Is That an iPod in Your Pocket?

After Apple Computer (AAPL) added video capability to the iPod last month, its iTunes store needed 20 days to sell a million episodes of hit ABC shows under a licensing deal with Walt Disney (DIS).

But Disney's "Desperate Housewives" have nothing on SuicideGirls.com, which took just a week to distribute a million free podcasts of its considerably pierced and tattooed amateur models, according to the Washington Post.

Portable, digital pornography is already a big business in Europe and Asia, where many cellphone users are as comfortable wirelessly downloading smut onto their cellphones as Americans are writing it onto their hard drives. Now the advent of sleek handsets with high-resolution screens is popularizing the porn-to-go trend in the U.S.

AVN, the U.S. porn industry's leading trade journal, pegs domestic sales of mobile adult content at just $35 million annually, compared with $2.5 billion for Internet porn and $12.6 billion for the industry overall. AVN pegs global mobile sales of adult content at a juicier $700 million.

The U.S. market for wireless titillation could reach $1 billion by 2008, according to the Yankee Group, a Boston technology consulting and research firm. That's peanuts for giants like Apple and Disney — who are at any rate unlikely to diversify into the field — but a potential bonanza for adult-content purveyors such as Playboy Enterprises (PLA), New Frontier Media (NOOF) and Private Media Group (PRVT), not to mention numerous closely held rivals.

"There's no question that this part of our business is ready to explode," says Steven Hirsch, CEO of Vivid Entertainment Group. The Los Angeles-based company notches revenues of some $100 million a year by producing and distributing such films as "Bare Naked" and "Happy Ending."

Vivid now offers a $24.95 monthly subscription that includes podcasts of its movies, and expects that mobile content will make up at least 30% of its business once it becomes widely available, which won't happen until wireless service providers work out reliable procedures for blocking sales to minors.

Playboy has also gone portable. Two weeks ago, it announced the launch of its Playboy Bodcast, on which bikini-clad models dispense the mildly racy wit and wisdom of octogenarian Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. It's seen as a trial balloon for a subscription service that might offer more explicit fare.

Playboy has leveraged its flagship magazine into a global lifestyle brand, while branching out into cable pay-per-view and broadcasting. Its web properties are now drawing 2.5 million unique visitors a month. CEO Christie Hefner, speaking at recent media industry conferences in New York, said the company would soon start breaking out its mobile content numbers in earnings releases.

"As you've already seen with the iPod, new media platforms are driven by a desire for music, games and adult content," says Playboy Entertainment President Jim Griffiths. "We really think that's an opportunity for us. But the model is still too new to make predictions."