Nintendo Wii + Web Surfing = Porn for the Whole Family?

The Nintendo Wii is quickly becoming a serious convergence machine - offering not only video game play, but also News and Weather updates, audience polling and an Internet channel. Much like WebTV had tried to do a decade ago, the Wii moves the Web from the little screen (your laptop) to the big screen (TV).

Now, one content stream doesn't just get accessed by multiple operating systems and multiple browsers, but the Web is now being accessed by a multitude of gadgets, from Blackberry handhelds, to iPhones, the iPod Touch, and the Wii, to name a few.

This evening, I spotted a Nintendo Wii checking in on the blog, and not exactly from a visitor looking for news on technology, sports, or even pictures of my beagle. Instead, the first Wii visit I've noticed was your typical lonely Web surfer looking for a late night porn fix, searching for "free girls on webcams without giving address". Interesting.

The Wii browser is an Opera derivative, version 9.30. And I have to assume there is a pretty good chance that whoever is looking for these Internet-living ladies with loose morals is doing so without their parents knowing. Time to turn on parental controls!

Google Video Still Peddling Soft-Core Porn Smut

I'm no prude, but I tend to believe that the higher the prominence a service has, combined with its ease of access, the more responsibility that service has to ensure its content is within commonly accepted guidelines. Barring those restrictions, the option should be offered to avoid questionable material. While Google does a good job with the majority of its offerings, the company's Google Video site is out of control - dominated by by soft core pornographic clips and innuendo.

Despite my noting several months ago that the Google Video service's most popular videos are almost universally offerings of a sexual nature, the world's number one information portal has done nothing to stop its direction. If no action is taken, it's likely that the adult portion of Google's video collection will so overwhelm other content that those seeking less titillating topics will head elsewhere.

Nearly a year after Google acquired YouTube, the main page of Google Video promotes videos they believe you would like (Recommended), Popular Videos, and a wide array of featured material. Also included on the front page are "Blog Buzz" items, similar to Technorati's Popularity rankings, Movers & Shakers, and a Top 10 list.

Today's Top Ten List as of midnight Sunday Pacific Time...

1. SEXY HOTTIE BABE DECIDING to SHOW HER BIG BOOBS on YOUTUBE?
2. Barbie Girl :D
3. Woman In SHOWER!!!
4. Girl caught by boyfriend
5. Webcam Girls Go Wild ( full )
6. Guy pwned by girl! www.videowhip.co.uk
7. Ainda te amo
8. sex hardcore xxx
9. Beyonce falls
10. loko da xuxa

It doesn't take a forensic scientist to see what is driving these rankings. In fact, if you click on the Top 100 link, the "brilliance" continues... offering... "Two girls teach one another how to French kiss"... "SEXY FART IN WEBCAM"... "close up half-undressed couple rolling around on bed"... "Hot Bikini Porn or Proud Vet?" ... "Kim Kardashian HUGE A*S AND TITS" and much more.

In Google's search results and image results, one has the option to add SafeSearch filtering to "not to have adult sites included in search results". Yet, even if I set my preferences to the most strict option, these videos don't change. Google's algorithm shows me the top 100 most popular videos, regardless if I'm looking for the PG-rated list or R-rated list.

Google is pervasive. As I mentioned last week, the site delivers me 95% of my blog traffic from search engines. With YouTube and Google Video, Google can dominate the video space as well. People of all ages are turning to this site to learn what's hot and what's not, and if Google Video is to be believed, sex continues to be hot. Very hot. I think the very least the site could do is extend the "SafeSearch" filtering to video, remove adult material from the Top 10 and Top 100 listings, or collapse the Top 10 list so the questionable material is off the front page. We wouldn't accept this ease of access to soft porn from AOL or CNN or Yahoo!, and we shouldn't accept it from Google.

Soft-Core Porn, Sex Themes Power Google Video

It's largely believed that Google Video will censor pornography or adult material from being uploaded to the company's video service. While in large part that may be true, that you can't find hot, steamy triple-X action on the site in the standard results, a quick stop over to the "Top 100" popular videos shows that Google Video users are just as interested in seeing a little skin as anything else.

Among tonight's "Top 10" films, you can see the titles hint and titillate users with names such as "Hot Girls", "Lesbos", "Sex Without Condoms", a video titled "First allowed Porn? XXX?" and "Barbie Girl". Beyond the Top 10, the themes are much the same... "Naked Kristina", "Spice Girls - Naked", "Giving Birth" and "Hot Sexy Webcam Girl". (See the screenshot from tonight here)

Hardly the PG and PG-13 landscape I might have naively expected.

Just this week, the hubbub over copyright issues surrounding Viacom's takedown notice to YouTube (a Google property) brought to light the issue of automatic filtering. Mark Cuban, the Broadcast.com-made billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner, said that the search engine was likely using filters to block out racy images, with the help of some manual labor.

He writes...

"Is there anyone out there who really believes that the Google and Youtube "communities" scans all 60k daily uploads to protect those that might be offended by a nipple flash or two?"

While there is a separate, hidden channel, for more adult themes, Google Video and YouTube largely promote themselves as family-friendly sites, but it's clear to me, at least, that on the Web, porn is still king. Porn sites helped push the Web forward in its infancy, toward e-commerce, and pop-up windows, and significant innovation.

While those really, truly, looking for hard-core porn could find it elsewhere, Google Video now looks like it has a place as a soft-core alternative.