Having spent much of the year tapping mobile markets around the globe, the bunny is coming to North America.
Playboy Enterprises Inc. announced a deal Thursday to offer adult games, images, video clips and ringtones to U.S. and Canadian wireless subscribers. The venerable men’s magazine is teaming with Dwango Wireless, a Seattle-based mobile marketer and content provider, for the service beginning early next year.
With the new service, Playboy will offer mobile content in 17 markets around the world, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and Brazil.
“Given the extraordinary success we’ve had with our wireless offerings around the world, we felt the time was right to expand our wireless content to the millions of U.S. subscribers,” said Randy Nicolau, president of distribution for the Playboy Entertainment Group. “Dwango has both the technological expertise and marketing savvy to develop and distribute our mobile entertainment content, and we are confident that they will be a great marketing partner in this venture.”
The move could mark a turning point for U.S. carriers, which have been loath to offer adult content for fear of bad public relations. While carrier agreements weren’t disclosed with the announcement, the service is likely to be offered through operators with whom Dwango already has agreements, such as Cingular Wireless L.L.C., Nextel Communications Inc., T-Mobile USA and Verizon Wireless
Dwango also offers games and other content from ESPN, Rolling Stone, and Beliefnet, an online religious community that includes prayer verses and other spiritual content.
