Pi-Consulting

A new generation of Americans is growing up on computers, and the race is on to be little kids’ online “destination of choice”. Now nine-year-olds can dress up dolls in cyberspace, picking out their clothes, hairstyles and accessories online. If you don’t like the dolls at Cartoon Doll Emporium, you could always click over to Cyworld, Habbo Hotel, Webkinz or WeeWorld. Even mighty Mattel is getting in on the act, with BarbieGirls.com. Sites enjoying 3 or 4 million visits a month are re-thinking their free access policies, and adding ‘premium services’ for $5 to $8 monthly. At Webkinz, buying a toy at the toy store allows children to enter a secret code from the sales tag at webkinz.com. This activates a ‘virtual replica’ of the toy, which the owner can then control at the click of a mouse, walking the cybertoy through virtual environments, building it a house, and so on. Kids “want a say in the script”, say industry observers. Most site visitors are female, with many ranging in age up to 16 and older. Seems there’s often a little girl hiding behind the most sophisticated teenage exterior. Sources: New York Times, Pi.

Whoever said the French are shoulder-shrugging cynics who dismiss new developments with a non-committal murmur of “Bof!” (French for “Who cares?”)? If they really were that world-weary and cynical, they wouldn’t bother to vote, right? We should therefore ponder the fact that the recent French general election, (which picked right-of-center Nicolas Sarkozy over left-of-center Segolene Royal), logged an astonishing 84% voter turnout. Britain and America barely scrape past the 60% level when it comes to turning out the vote. Given that this was the first time a female candidate had made the second-round run-off poll, it was interesting that Mr. Sarkozy not only scored 53% of the vote overall, but 52% of the female vote. So much for “women rallying behind one of their own”. Hillary-fanciers for the US 2008 election, please note. And Happy Bastille Day to all our French and French Canadian readers. Source: The Economist, Pi.

“If a new communications technology is going to work”, we used to say, “it will work first by spreading dirty pictures”. And so it proved, from postcards through cinema, video, mobile phones, DVD and now the internet. The internet, however, having conferred unimagined growth on the porn business over the last decade or so, now seems to be turning the growth phenomenon into reverse drive. In 2005, says trade publication AVN, pornographic video sales and rentals stood at $4.28 billion. Last year the figure drooped to only 3.62 billion. The total sex-related entertainment market is still substantial at $13 billion, but current trends suggest that the wilting video business may detumesce the whole market, with other revenue not growing fast enough to counter the vid-pic droop. Some porn-industry mavens blame a technology-led drift to do-it-yourself online sex. Says one: “People are making movies in their houses and dropping them on websites. …It’s killing the market”. The prurient now have easy and anonymous access to “porn from nowhere”, at greatly reduced prices compared to those charged by the big distributors. Says another rueful inside commentator, “The barrier… is so low. All you need is a video camera and a couple of people to have sex”. Purveyors of the Internet Porn industry are meeting this week for their summer business expo, XBIZ, at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas. Seminars include “How to Protect Your Content”, “Driving New Traffic to your Website” and “Legalities of the New 2257 regulations”. Just proves there is a trade show for every industry. Sources: New York Times, XBiz Summer Forum, Pi.