When Apple introduced FaceTime almost a year ago, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the adult industry might try to subvert it for their own fun and profit -- but apparently, there wasn’t enough fun and even less profit in FaceTime porn.
Cult of Mac is reporting that FaceTime-based adult chat company iP4Play has closed their doors, officially ceasing operations last week. Established in August, 2010, the service aimed to take advantage of the FaceTime service on the iPhone 4 (and later the fourth-gen iPod touch and iPad 2) for some randy chat with ladies of the opposite sex, video and all.
iP4Play seemed to have all the makings of a winner in the adult industry, never mind keeping Steve Jobs up late at night trying to figure out how to shut it down. The company racked up 1,000 paid chats in the first five days after launch, at a cost of $4 per minute, paid via credit card in blocks of five, 10, 20 or 30 minutes.
According to iP4Play CEO Travis Falstad, it wasn’t Apple or Steve Jobs that finally was the undoing of the company -- there simply weren’t enough people using FaceTime for sex chats, let alone anything else. Perhaps it was the fact that FaceTime requires a Wi-Fi connection for use?
There were other issues, to be sure. In addition to low FaceTime adoption, Falstad also cites “competition from webcams, coupled with higher costs to maintain quality talent” -- likely the bulk of the 40 employees that the CEO had to give walking papers to last week.
While Falstad moves on to “another mobile app project currently in production,” the rest of us can rest easy, secure in the knowledge that porn doesn’t always pay. Steve Jobs, you have one less nightmare to worry about now…
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(Image courtesy of Cult of Mac)
