This blog states that with video capabilities added to Skype 2.0 that he thinks this could be an enabler for the porn industry. Specifically he states, "But, let us be realistic - with the integration of video with Skype, and Skype-Out, the real business is going to be porn."

I'm not sure I necessarily agree with that statement. While Skype 2.0 still has the renowned audio quality and I was quite impressed with the video quality in my Skype 2.0 review, I don't think the API is flexible enough at the moment to enable live porn video feeds while simultaneously giving the entire billing control to the pornographers. You have to consider that the pornographers need an easy way to charge a per minute rate for the video feed while still maintaining control of the billing. As far as I know, Skype would retain the billing rights and as such, they will no doubt want to take a cut of the "pie". Why would unscupulous, greedy, pornographers want to "share" the revenue with Skype when they can and have built their own "home grown" video solutions? Doesn't make sense to me for the professional pornographers.

The only way I can see this "possibly" working is if amateur porn wannabees (people in their homes) want to make money on the side by offering some enticing voyeuristic "sneak previews" on their personal website with a Skype Me button and some text saying "Let's talk! $1.99/minute for a really good time + full video & audio" - or something to that effect. The fact that millions have already installed Skype and therefore it has some inherent "trust" level, might make web visitors more willing to click. Just to put this in perspective - there are so many porn sites out there that "entice" you with XXX video feeds, but require you to download and install an executable (.exe) file in order to receive the video. Yeah, right. Like I'm going to trust you not to infect my PC with spyware or a virus? Not that I ever visit porn sites of course. This is just common knowledge. ;)

In any event, certainly the Skype software gets over the 'hurdle' of the "trust" factor that pornographers don't have - and rightly so. Actually, since eBay also owns Paypal, a trusted, popular currency exchange website, it could be very easy to integrate payment as well. Imagine if you link you Skype account ID with your Paypal ID. It could be a one-click pay-per-minute Skype videocall that automatically deducts from your Paypal account. (of course there are some privacy considerations over integrating your Skype account with you Paypal account) Come to think of it, I wrote a blog entry titled "Profit from IM & VoIP" where I described how one company was offering the ability for any individual user to bill for their time while communicating with one or more other users over a standard IM/VoIP network

So maybe Skype offering people the ability to stream live video pornography isn't such a bad idea after all? :D