What is the FapMapper? It’s a utility created by the fun-loving folks at Pink Visual that allows you to put your sex acts, porn consumption habits and erotic fantasies on the map – literally. Have you and your girlfriend or boyfriend recently had sex in a location that was particularly interesting or exotic? Mark that spot on FapMapper and establish your bragging rights! Did you sneak in a quick jerk somewhere inappropriate? Well, Map that Fap, brother!

Humorous? Sure. But no one’s going to use it, right? Well, go check your city. New York already has dozens of pins with random sexual exploits and adult entertainment retail reviews ready for you to peruse.

Of course, technology and sexuality have always been close bedfellows.

Perhaps nothing proves this point more than the fact that the largest consumer electronics convention (CES) just happens to occur simultaneously with the largest adult entertainment convention (AVN), in the same city (Las Vegas) every year in early January. This year, Spike TV is heading to AVN with adult film star darling Sasha Grey for in-depth coverage.

Porn went mainstream a long time ago. There’s almost nothing in our society as universal as pornography, at least according to researchers at the University of Montreal.

The sex toy industry alone is valued annually at USD $15 billion with a growth rate of 30%. And which free-wheeling, sexually and technologically advanced culture produces up to 70% of the product? Well, that’d be China.

Advertising is premeditated on our desires: our desires to live, to feast, and to reproduce. Beyond beautiful bodies and perfect faces in their advertising, however, most brands are weary to tread too closely to our sexual desires. And as they’ve clung to that often resurgent American puritanical spirit, our sexual appetite has evolved with our adoption of high-speed internet and on-demand sexual indulgence.

Not to say, however, that porn and lust are 20th century inventions. Some of the very earliest forms of artistic work among the historical record are tokens of fertility and sexual expression. But given the option of stone statue or streaming internet video, well, let’s be grateful for electricity, internet connectivity, and modern convenience.

There’s at least one publicly traded American enterprise firmly standing for sexuality – American Apparel. American Apparel reported net sales for the third quarter of 2009 of $150.3 million. Not bad for a company that didn’t have a retail store until 2003.

On the web, Nerve.com has been publishing content at the intersection of technology, culture, and sexuality since its founding in 1997. Nerve has also been facilitating sex with their personals service (which now extends to over 100 publishers). As a New Yorker, one of the best conversations to have is to ask your friends for their embarrassing/interesting Nerve dating experiences (you’d be surprised at how many people have them). Nerve has experienced steady growth here in the US, but according to Quantcast they’re seeing a higher growth among global visitors. All in all, not too shabby for a near thirteen year old online publication considering the fate of a majority of their peers. Vice Magazine and VBS.tv are both excellent additional case studies on the matter.

As more and more brands find themselves entering the technology space to stay current with culture, it seems impossible for them to ignore the routine expression of our sexual selves through the same technology – and it seems less fruitful for them to do so.

Twitter could easily become far less about one-to-one conversations, and more centered around information delivered by automatic sources.

For instance, posting will become more automatic.

Apps running in the background (someday) will push notifications to my Twitter feed, like my location, what I’m listening to, calories I’m burning, content I’m capturing, etc.

Responses will become more automatic, too.

Beyond brands trying to act like real human beings, they’ll also push to create automatic feeds offering real value. If you mention a location you should get a coupon or competing offer. If you mention wanting a product, Amazon or eBay may try to sell it to you. If you get annoyed by the offer, you’ll tweet back with something like “@amazon UNSUBSCRIBE”.

Twitter will become the little loyalty card you get punched every time you buy a coffee. Agencies will sprout up with the capability to build these services for brands and their brick and mortar stores. I know I must sound naive – this has been the basic premise behind anything mobile for the last few years, but I’m really beginning to doubt that people will accept messaging without having consciously pushed out related content. Twitter is the perfect channel to play eavesdropper and it’s still easy enough for people to ignore you when they choose.

Brands will retain their main handles for the conversation stuff, the back and forth with their super fans, but they’ll soon start generating dozens of automatic accounts to pump out deals and news. (Dell on Twitter is the first mover here)

This was a quick bake, so I want to hear your thoughts here…

There’s a great quick post over at HarvardBusiness.org on the zombie economy and Michael Jackson.

“If the world’s biggest pop star only made $12 million a year from his recordings, why would anyone make serious music? Where did the rest of the money go? Why, straight into record labels’ pockets. Did they make better music with it? Nope — they made Britney and Lady GaGa. And that’s how they killed themselves: by underinvesting in quality, to rake in the take.

That’s the big problem behind the zombieconomy. We don’t reward people for creating, growing, nurturing, or even remixing assets. We just reward them for allocating the same old assets.”

The zombie economy is a result of chasing hits, of short-sighted wins, and of course, greed. I know a few people that might argue with the Lady GaGa reference (it’s subjective and weak), but examples go well beyond the music industry. We’ve embraced scale to such a degree that we can no longer ignore its impact on our interconnected world.

Starbucks can topple governments by their decisions on which coffee beans to purchase. Wal-Mart employs over 2.1 million associates worldwide and touches far more up and down the food chain. (got more examples? leave em in the comments)

Neither of these companies, I believe, sought out to entrench themselves in the very blood stream of the global economy, but they have. And now their actions directly impact all of us – and ultimately, themselves again. It’s about a longer view than a quarterly earnings report. These companies now have a direct responsibility to invest in activities that contribute to the full eco-system, not simply to their margins. This responsibility extends far beyond advertising.

Like people, companies have to develop something akin to self-actualization – they have to do more with their actions than simply prolong their own existence.

Listen to Umair Haque speak on the zombie economy