VAN NUYS, Calif.—With mobile mapping utilities for the iPhone all the rage these days—from tools to help you remember where you parked your car, to routing applications that instruct you on the optimal path from Point A to Point B—adult entertainment studio Pink Visual has come up with another novel use for modern mapping technology: documenting your sexual exploits.
Currently in beta, Pink Visual’s “FapMapper” is designed to “augment an age-old tradition of boasting about one’s sexual conquests,” according to Kim Kysar, brand and product manager for the studio.
Although the name FapMapper suggests the utility is strictly about masturbation (“fap” is a euphemism for masturbation that is increasingly popular among young, tech-savvy web users), Kysar said the app’s intended function goes beyond autoeroticism.
“FapMapper is an extension of those conversations guys have with their college buddies after each summer vacation,” Kysar said. “You know—the ones in which they lie like rugs about how many hot chicks they nailed over the summer? That’s what FapMapper is all about: adding a visual and geographic element to your sexual exploits, be they real or fabricated.”
Added Pink Visual Marketing Coordinator Q Boyer, “The idea is to put in the hands of Pink Visual fans and site members something that is fun, interactive, comical and, while sex-related, not ‘pornographic’ in itself. We’re encouraging our fans to put their creativity and sense of humor to use within a sexual context. Ideally, they will have fun with the FapMapper and that enjoyment will inspire greater brand loyalty for Pink Visual, which will reinforce in their minds an image of our brand and company as innovative, fun-loving and focused on delivering a quality user experience that goes beyond watching porn.”
While principally designed for use on the iPhone, FapMapper also can be used on desktop computers. The application detects the user’s location and sets the initial map display accordingly. Once logged in as a member, the user can search for locations to place “fap pins” by typing addresses into the seek function. Once a location has been found, the user then clicks “Mark” to set the pin. In the process, the user can leave a comment describing what sex act they engaged in at that location.
“The comments are at least half the fun,” Kysar said. “We anticipate that for a lot of users, it will be about coming up with the most outrageous claim, paired with the most unlikely location they can think of. We’ve already seen people claiming to have masturbated at the White House, and I’m sure eventually we’ll have quite a number of landmarks and historic sites in the mix.”
So how exactly does FapMapper make money? According to Boyer, in its current form, it doesn’t—at least not directly.
“During its beta phase, our goal for FapMapper is really just to get as many people participating, posting crazy comments and placing ‘fap pins’ as possible," Boyer told AVN. " Eventually, once we’ve added functionality and enhanced both the aesthetic elements and back-end infrastructure, the vision for FapMapper is for it to produce revenue through advertising. We aren’t going to litter the user interface with banners, but if you think about all the possibilities inherent to the map display itself, coupled with a highly targeted user audience of adult entertainment fans, I think you can see how that sort of environment might be of interest to those advertising brick-and-mortar adult shops, strip clubs, lingerie shops and other manner of adult and adult-friendly businesses.”
Boyer stressed FapMapper’s place in Pink Visual’s overall marketing strategy is as important to the company as its ability to generate revenue, something he basically sees as two sides of the same coin.
“We’ve worked hard over the past couple years to establish Pink Visual as an innovative company that places a lot of emphasis on having fun and on sharing that fun with our customers,” he said. “The mobile market has been a real focus of ours recently, obviously, and the FapMapper is just one of several applications we’re developing that pair nicely with porn without being porn. Not long ago, we put into play the new slogan ‘We Innovate, You Masturbate,’ which is tongue in cheek obviously, but it’s also reflective of our actual approach to the market. Sure, we make good porn, but lots of companies make good porn. We want people to think of Pink Visual as a company that develops quality technology and does interesting things with that technology in addition to making good porn.”
At the moment, the only mobile device supported by the FapMapper is the iPhone, but Kysar said support for additional devices is coming soon.
“We started with the iPhone because that device is a big focus for us, but we don’t want to leave everybody else out of the fun,” Kysar said. “Don’t fret, Palm Pre users; you too will soon be able to map your faps.”
For more information, visit www.ipinkvisualpass.com/fapmap/ or contact Kysar via email.
