I had a brief conversation with the company's co-founder and CEO Justin Siegel, who made the compelling argument that there is still a need for a social networking site aimed at mobile users: those people who don't have broadband connections at home, or don't have a desk job that allows them to surf the Web half the day, but do have a mobile phone.

As is often the case in tight news cycles, I didn't have time to do more than scratch the surface of this company before reporting their funding announcement. Wednesday I returned to take a closer look, but I didn't have to look very closely at all to see that a huge portion of the content on MocoSpace is what I could only describe as porn. I'm not talking about scantily clad teenage girls who may be showing a little more cleavage than their parents would like; I'm talking about stuff that's far more raunchy, complete with labels like "Hot Asian Porn Star."

The page listing the site's most popular videos was covered with this kind of content, and while other sections of the site, such as the blogs section, appeared to have a wider variety of content, including one blog focused on wrestling, I also saw more of the raunch from people advertising their personal blogs as the site for "dirty pix" and the like.

This is not meant to be naive or judgmental: It's no secret, after all, that some of the most established content sites on the Internet today, such as Yahoo Inc. [YHOO], got their start by serving up a big plate of adult content. More recently, I wrote about Zivity.com, a startup that is very up-front about building a business plan around the strong demand online for sexy photos. Zivity, which bills itself as a cross between MySpace, Playboy and "American Idol," also wins points for attempting to take some of the exploitation out of the porn industry by letting models post their own photos and collect revenues based on their popularity.

While Facebook is fast being taken over by stodgy middle-aged types more interested in swapping photos of their kids than of their cleavage, there's a great deal of racy content on MySpace. Still, on MySpace there is more of a mix: The raunchy stuff does not jump out at you as soon as you log on, like it does on MocoSpace.  

Clearly, a lot of investors are still open to online business models based on adult content, but MocoSpace's own description as a "place to find friends, have fun and stay connected on your mobile phone" seems like a case of blatant misrepresentation. Trying hard to give the company the benefit of the doubt, I attempted to register as a 17-year-old, assuming that -- as much of a joke as these virtual carders are -- MocoSpace would at least pay lip service to keeping kids out.

Well, it turns out you don't have to register at all to watch many of the porn videos, and those who do bother to register don't have to claim to be 18 -- but only 14 years old. As of this writing, I'm still waiting for the company to comment on the nature of its content. - Andrea Orr

See Jan. 28 post from Tech Confidential
See September 2007 post from Tech Confidential