I don’t know what it is about this story that makes me laugh, but the news today is that Sony’s Blu-Ray standard for the coalescing vaporware of high-def DVDs is getting picked as a winner because …

(drumroll plee-yuz)

THE PORNO INDUSTRY HAS PICKED BLU-RAY OVER HD-DVD!

Yep. Just as VHS beat Betamax, just as the web is still fueled by all you one-handed surfers out there, so too will the future of digital home entertainment be driven by good old wocka-wocka-bow-chicka-bow-bow movies. 

Porn studio Digital Playground, which claims to have produced the largest number of high definition movies in the industry over the past three years, said it is choosing Blu-ray Disc for all of its “interactive” films because of its greater capacity. It also selected Blue-ray because Sony chose the format for its PlayStation 3 (PS3) box, due out in November.

The co-founder of Los Angeles-based Digital Playground, who goes by the one-word name “Joone,” said the fact that Sony chose Blu-ray guarantees his studio an instant home audience.

“PlayStation 3 is going to be the Trojan horse that will get a lot of numbers into the home theater systems — the living rooms,” said Joone, who is also a movie director. “Technology-wise we’ve chosen Blu-ray, which doesn’t mean we won’t support both formats … but as far as having really cool technology and a lot of storage for future proof, Blu-ray is a good format.”

As I know people on both sides of the divide (i.e. I know folks at Sony who have been working the last 2 years on trying to establish Blu-Ray, as well as knowing many of the players in the porn world, from having done that report on ABC), this just amuses me no end.  I wonder though – now that it is conventional wisdom that the rest of the entertainment industry takes its cues from porno, does this mean that more and more decisions will be based on what happens out in Northridge? (BTW – the article lists worldwide porno earnings as $57 billion. They should be so lucky. The insiders mostly list the total take at about $12 billion; which still frickin buries movies and even the mighty video game industry.)

Also, I wonder at the "tired" effect – which is that once something in hi-tech and the web becomes so true that all the dunderheaded analysts accept it as being undeniably true … it turns out to be wrong, simply because everybody gets tired of it.  E.g. "The hottest space to be in on the web right now is to be a portal, like AOL.  That’s the only way to make money."  or "Content is king. All that matters is spending as much as you can to get eyeballs.  The money will follow, once you own an audience."

Having cratered at two companies that accepted the above statements as gospel, I wonder if the assumption that the Porno Seal of Gadget Approval doesn’t mean that Blu-ray is now doomed… (BTW – are there any hot graphic designers out there than can craft a Porno Seal of Gadget Approval? )