How To Create Your Own Fad – Mixing Bluetooth And Sex

from the just-toss-in-a-little-sex dept

Last month we saw the first article about the practice of “toothing” – using a Bluetooth-enabled phone to randomly, anonymously proposition people for sex on trains in the UK – and pointed out that it really sounded like a made-up fad by a few guys who really really wished it were true. They may be getting their wish. Following that first article, now Reuters has picked up on it and written their own article about the practice, which is sure to get plenty of press attention. This article, like the previous one, makes no effort to establish how widespread the practice really is (and how much of it is just in the minds of a bunch of horny commuters). Still, with this press coverage, it may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, all you need to do to create an overhyped fad is take some sort of communications technology, and figure out how to use it for sex. Then, you can anonymously tell the press about it, and they’ll basically believe everything you say until the made-up fad sounds legitimate. Now, if they really wanted to get publicity, they should find a religious group that wants to ban Bluetooth because of this.


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Comments on “How To Create Your Own Fad – Mixing Bluetooth And Sex”

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7 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Toothing

There have been lots of people who have proposed the theory that sexually oriented business are among the first to use new telecommunication and technical advances. I’m not saying I agree with them, but they have some points:

1. The whole effort to increase modem speeds from 9.6 to 14.4 and up to broadband today have largely driven the success of on-line porn, although I would argue that file swapping (of the musical variety) helped drive a lot of it more recently.

2. On-line escort advertising is an established and growing business

3. Want to chat with a nekkid woman? You can do it on-line.

There are a lot more examples. And once the holosuite is perfected, who do you think will be the first to turn it into a business? So the question is can this toothing thing be made profitable? (I think this is one of the Rules of Acquisition)

August Jackson (user link) says:

Can yous end text via Bluetooth?

The first time I heard about this I mentioned it to some of my friends and asked their opinion. None of us seemed to have figured out how to use our mobiles to send text messages via Bluetooth. Being a technically adept bunch, we sat down and tried to figure out a way to do this, to no avial. Amongs the owners of a few Nokia and SonyEriccson phones we couldn’t figure out how to text via Bluetooth. I’m not sure I buy it.

That said, one thing I know I CAN do is send pictures via Bluetooth from my camera phone. Considering the topic at hand this capability does present some opportunities for those interested in such things.

Ryan B says:

Re: Re: Reality Check!

Umm… with my Sony Ericsson phone you have to enable blue tooth each time you use it to detect other users. Some how I don’t imagine other people wasting there battery desperately hoping someone else will have their blue tooth switched on to send them a random text. Bluetooth is not always on! Next please 😉

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