Leaving Las Vegas
What is it with bathroom technology, Jerry?
Belly Dancing with 8×8’s Tango
It’s late in the day on Day 3, and CES attendees practically need a Tasering to notice an exhibitor at this point. Enter belly dancers.
The Other, Sexier Tech Expo
Attracting plenty of curiosity among CES-goers (and disappointment at the strict admission policies) is AVN’s Adult Entertainment Expo, which started today just down the corridor from one of the main CES exhibit halls.
When a group of college students launched the document-sharing Web site Scribd.com, they envisioned it as a place where they and others could publish term papers online.
Scribd, which allows anyone to upload documents much like YouTube lets users post videos online, has grown quickly since its September 2006 debut. Users have added more than 350,000 documents in various languages, ranging from instructions for solving a Rubik’s Cube to the sheet music from Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Ave Maria.” Groups dedicated to sharing everything from Federal Communications Commission reports to Japanese comic books have sprung up.
But rivaling Scribd’s growing collection of schoolwork, public documents and other miscellanea is a significant amount of adult content, which the start-up has taken pains to downplay while it decides whether the explicit material will stay or go. As other Internet destinations that rely on user-generated content have learned — from photo-sharing sites like Flickr to video sites like YouTube and Veoh — keeping the site “clean” while not alienating users is a central challenge.
Video-sharing Web site Veoh.com has been around less than a year and is dwarfed by rival YouTube.com Inc. But Veoh has drawn outsized attention from bloggers and other Internet users for its willingness to host racy videos that other sites prohibit.
But that changed late last week, when closely held Veoh Networks Inc. quietly removed the “adult” category from its site and deleted thousands of risque videos. The San Diego company also said it was cracking down on copyrighted material.
Veoh, like YouTube and Google Inc.’s video site, attracts visitors with its user-contributed collection of video clips. The site, which was launched in September, has lined up prominent backers, including Time Warner Inc. and former Walt Disney Co. chief Michael Eisner, who sits on its board.
Veoh has been popular with bloggers because, unlike YouTube and Google, it allowed bloggers to upload and link to videos containing nudity.