Playboy TV Club
www.playboytvclub.com

As technology progresses, ideas which had been impossible before can come to fruition. But this is not enough. Competence in, and adoption of, the new technologies are also essential. One industry in particular has consistently been an early adopter of new technologies: the adult industry. One technology agency in particular stays at the cutting edge of the Internet: Thirdwave, LLC. So it's fitting that Thirdwave would help develop the Playboy TV Club, an idea which wouldn't have been feasible until very recently.

The Playboy TV Club offers programming and content from Playboy's television network. Unlike most adult sites, the Playboy TV Club is not limited to ordinary, static images. Instead, thanks to the magic of RealPlayer, the site offers actual video. SMIL integrates this video content with HTML-based navigation and content to provide a complete and coherent user experience.

Any broadcast or cable TV channel would quickly go out of business if it played the same content over and over again. New content is equally important on Internet TV. Therefore, we developed a content management solution allowing Playboy staff to publish new programming. RAM files (which link to video hosted by RealNetworks) and SMIL and HTML content can all be managed through this interface without our assistance.

RealNetworks hosts the video content, as well as providing other core functionality such as customer registration and billing. Teamwork and coordination with RealNetworks was therefore the key to this project's successful launch. Technically, integrating our solution with RealNetworks was also critical. Content managed by our solution seamlessly integrates with video managed by RealNetworks. As well, adult content has a high need for security. People who haven't paid and, more importantly, minors must be denied access. We integrated RealNetworks' security mechanisms with the Playboy TV Club to ensure that both video and non-video content are protected.