Hugh Hefner may have made sex a household word, but certain observers suggest that Playboy's cyberhousehold may not be in such great shape compared to its racier competition online - not necessarily encouraging news as the company prepares for a major stock offering in Playboy.com.
Playboy was a little piqued by a RedHerring.com writer's description last October of Playboy.com as a porn site, but another RedHerring.com commentator suggests the company might want to think twice before it objects - the "porn" sites it doesn't want to be are killing the House that Hef Built online.
The problem may be rooted in Playboy's hard-and-long-earned reputation for sophistication in hand with its sexiness. But RedHerring.com's Tom Davey says Playboy should have described its last prospectus as containing explicit adult-oriented material. "That may be the best way to drive the value of the dot.com spin-off to an obscenely rich post-market valuation," Davey writes. "After all, when it comes to making money, the really trashy sites, such as Porncity.net…are kicking Playboy.com's you-know-what."
Forrester Research, the Internet tracking and analysis firm, says the three largest adult Web sites had between $100-150 million gross 1998 revenues - compared to $6.7 million for Playboy.com the same year. Though Playboy.com's 1998 revenues doubled over the year before, Davey says it would take Playboy.com "many years" to equal the largest porn sites.
Playboy has filed for a $50 million stock offering to sell what Davey calls "an undisclosed portion" of Playboy.com. The offering is expected during the next couple of months and the money could help Playboy acquire "some good porn sites, which (it) will need to stay abreast of the competition," Davey writes.
But he says Playboy is caught in an economic dilemna - the product may actually be a lot tamer than even some mainstream publications and other media, never mind pure porn for now people. Once considered the quintessential balance of intellect and sex, Playboy.com may have been one of the first adult-oriented Web sites - but Davey says it wasn't quite so astute developing content which could keep up with a new and less inhibited breed of adult competition online.
"The magazine and the site now have two problems: the variety of entertainment and information is no longer special, and the sex may not be sexy enough," Davey writes.
Neilsen/Net Ratings showed that, in December, three million people visited Porncity.net - but only 940,000 visited Playboy.com. Playboy.com has already acquired the more explicit Cyberspice.com - but it's not mentioned on Playboy.com's home page; neither does Cyberspice.com mention Playboy.com.
"Playboy has a difficult line to walk," says Jupiter Communications analyst Aram Sinnreich to Davey "They're trying to position themselves as an adult lifestyle content site rather than a pornography site. But the Spice acquisition is the direction they'll be going in the future."
