[jenmcewen]

I was just about to share this. That's my company (and me in 2 of the pictures). Thanks for sharing it.

[timbowhite]

So I just signed up for a Mikandi account, you know, just to explore a little...

A couple of things:

1. I tried buying account credit (aka "Mikandi Gold"), but it wouldn't work, looks like jQuery isn't being loaded, error from console:

> ReferenceError: $ is not defined [1]

2. Do you guys accept Bitcoin/cryptocurrency? If not, why? Seems like the perfect venue for it, I would think most geeks wouldn't want those types of purchases tied to their credit card.

[1] https://mikandi.com/account/buygold

[jenmcewen]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll take a look. Most of the activity happens in the Android client, not on the site, so we sometimes don't check the web property as often as we should.

We've talked about cryptocurrency but go back and forth on it. Right now, we're mainly focused on streamlining credit card, direct debit, and SMS billing, and carrier where we can get it. We just got approved to use Paypal through Epoch so that's really exciting for us since a lot of people want to buy adult content by Paypal.

[onedev]

You should do an AMA here in this thread about the industry!

I'll start. What are some common misconceptions about the industry in general and what do you think about the accuracy of the article and how it paints the industry?

[jenmcewen]

An AMA sounds fun. :)

I think the article covered the misconceptions and the state of the industry pretty well.

I think the biggest misconceptions are: 1. No one pays for porn, but we know they do. 2. Selling is a sure-fire way to make a ton of money. It's only sure-fire if you're going to use less than favorable tactics, as with any business. 3. Everyone in porn is a scammer. There are bad apples, but most folks in the adult industry are really great to work with. 4. That porn tube sites are the common enemy. But in many ways it's the big mainstream tech giants that threaten the industry. Take a look at Tumblr. They made it so easy to spread and share pirated content with one click and even if you wanted to claim your content back by adding your affiliate links, they will ban your account and call that "spam".

[petra]

Jen, how do you think the virtual reality porn industry will look like?

[matwood]

And to add to that, how accurate was the documentary on Netflix, "Hot Girls Wanted"?

[jenmcewen]

I haven't seen it yet. I find most of these "exposes" into the performer world tend to be biased, but I'll check it out.

[TeMPOraL]

Hi Jen!

I just want to say, it was a nice stunt you did with Google Glass! I think the jokes were even better than the... more explicit part. It was also the first time I heard of MiKandi. Please do something like this with HoloLens as well, such take on up-and-coming technologies is a material for infinite amount of laughter over at watercooler at work.

[jenmcewen]

Thanks! We had a ton of fun shooting that. Andy and James ad libbed a lot of it. It was fun to shoot because we had to hide in the back room while they did their thang, otherwise they'd catch us in the Glass footage huddled around the corner laughing. :D The funny thing about shooting Glass POV porn is we thought we could be in the room to help direct, but literally everything you see is recorded, so we were constantly accidentally caught on film. So they kicked us out. :D

[anigbrowl]

Thanks for joining in. How do you feel about the marginalization of porn by the primary platform vendors?

[jenmcewen]

it's unethical.

I love Android because it's open and am happy that Google kept it that way... to an extent. Some of the things they do are backhanded. For example, there's a strong campaign to condition users to only trust Google for apps. Downloading any third party APK from Chrome brings up a scary warning: https://v5j7s7h5.ssl.hwcdn.net/v2/mkstatic/chrome-warning.pn... If you do a mobile search for porn apps, half the screen is taken up by anti-porn apps available in Play Store. They campaign that Play is the only legitimate and safe source, but malicious apps find their way in Play too. Instead of lumping all third party sources as "Unknown" and potentially dangerous, there ought to be a way for third parties to earn "Known" status and verified as a trusted source. But I doubt we'll ever get that fair treatment.

It's not just Google though, obviously. These tech giants have the opportunity and thus responsibility to make a positive difference here. Instead, by blocking one of our most basic human desires, they often chose to devolve and perpetuate the war on sex.

I daydream that, one day, tech giants like Google, Amazon, or Yahoo, or VCs and banks will say, “Let’s open our doors to SexTech companies we can trust.” We try to operate everyday as if this is a possibility, because one day I hope it will be.

If you have time to spare, I go into a lot of it here https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/sextech-startups-in-a-ho... There's also a long read on our blog about Operation Choke Point and how the government used banks and credit card companies to take down legal industries they deem immoral https://mikandi.com/blog/featured/guide-to-operation-choke-p...

[anigbrowl]

Thanks for the comprehensive reply! I'll look through those links tomorrow and may drop you a line. This is a political issue I care deeply about so I'd like to stay in touch.

[jenmcewen]

absolutely. My email is [e-mail].