Melbourne, Australia – A new venture in adult "hybrid media" entertainment, combining SMS Chat, MMS multimedia, and streaming Webcams, has been launched in both Australia and the United Kingdom, and will be followed up by a U.S. launch in early March.
"HomeHotties.com" provides mobile phone users with the ability to swap mobile phone text messages with the girl of their choice - at a cost of several dollars per message billed to the user's phone. The Homehotties service adds the ability to send photographs direct to a customers' phone as well as to a Web site where they can even watch the girl live via Webcam.
The launch of "HomeHotties" coincides with what appears to be a lack of interest by the U.S adult industry in the pending availability of Premium SMS mobile services.
"We see a huge potential in Premium SMS Text services, where people share messages from their mobile phones to a girl of their choice," said David Thompson, founder of HomeHotties, adding "On returning from the recent Internext Expo in Las Vegas, I was staggered at the lack of readiness by the U.S Adult industry to capitalize on the availability of Premium SMS in the U.S market in the first quarter of 2004."
"In a tiny population like Australia, there are tens of thousands of Premium SMS transactions for adult services each day. In the U.K, there are hundreds of thousands. With the size of the U.S market, it could easily be in the millions," Mr. Thompson said, adding "Maybe everyone in the U.S is just keeping their projects under wraps, but my clear impression is that the industry is largely either unaware or unprepared."
Homehotties differentiates itself from existing Premium SMS text chat services available in places like Australia and the U.K. by adding vision and reality to the adult text experience.
"When we spoke to users of these services, their biggest issue was not knowing if they were really texting a girl or not. This fear was justified when we looked into some of these services, where the replies from the "girls" were either automated responses, or the male owners of the services." Mr. Thompson said.
"At the same time, we were approached by a group of girls who regularly show on Webcam and chat for free on our video chat site www.anywebcam.com, who wanted to turn something they do for fun, into a potential business."
"We helped the girls setup their own site, using our Webcam viewer technology so they could do live Webcam shows. We then setup a gateway to Premium SMS text messaging from mobile phones, which charges several dollars per text send-and-reply." Mr. Thompson said.
Now, instead of replying from their mobile phones, the girls have an easy Web interface to receive and reply to text messages from customers. The system even keeps a history of callers, so the girls can recall previous text conversations with a customer. Using MMS technology, they can even send one of a gallery of photographs or take a photo using their Webcam and send it live to the customer's phone or email on request.
"And for those who don't believe the girls they are chatting with are real girls and really live, they can go to www.homehotties.com and watch them live during SMS chat sessions, and prove it to themselves!"
"We have a longer term strategy and are building the components for a completely mobile video and chat experience." Mr. Thompson said. "HomeHotties is capitalizing on where both the technology and the market is at the moment. Today, most people can either access the Web or can send and receive text messages from their mobile phones. When the networks, billing and market are ready for it, we'll have both the products and experience to really capitalize on a total adult mobile entertainment service for mass broadcasters and audiences."
Homehotties SMS services and the site at www.homehotties.com is now available from Australia and the UK, with a U.S. launch slated for March 2004 when Premium SMS billing becomes widely available across major mobile networks.
