Entertainment Network, creator of www.voyeurdorm.com, has helped to pioneer virtual voyeurism via multiple 24/7 digital video cameras strategically mounted throughout wired residences. Indeed, EN websites ballyhoo its historic contribution to cybersnooping. Blurbs declare: "remember you are a part of Internet history" and "some will try to copy us but we were the first to go online LIVE."
Mainstream and adult entertainment's relationship is often incestuous. "Reality" programming, from features such as The Truman Show to network TV, seems to derive much from Voyeurdorm-type sites. "CBS came to us wanting to do the type of stuff we do on TV," claims David Marshlack, President & CEO of Entertainment Network. "Survivor and all that came about from what they learned from us. CBS was in shock when they came and saw the numbers this little Tampa firm was doing on an Internet site. It really opened their eyes to what they could do." (Marshlack adds filmmakers are interested in shooting a documentary about Voyeurdorm.)
As for the chicken and the egg conundrum, cinema began with primitive reality programming. In 1890s France, the Lumieres filmed workers leaving their factory, or a speeding locomotive (which shocked early audiences). By the 1920s, Soviet director Dziga Vertov shot documentaries minus scripts and actors, which he called Kino Pravda. This can translate as "Candid Camera" - a technique which Allen Funt later transformed into a popular TV show in the 1940s. By the 1960s, Cinema Verite became the rage among documentarians - Robert Drew's 1960 landmark film, Primary, documented the JFK-Hubert Humphrey race for the Democratic Presidential nomination; the Maysles filmed an actual murder at a Rolling Stones concert in 1970s Gimme Shelter; and in 1973, a camera crew moved into a troubled household to lense An American Family for a PBS documentary series, which Albert Brooks spoofed in the 1979 feature Real Life.
DV and Internet technology have given so-called reality programming a new shape and twist. Entertainment Network, which went online in 1995, has led the Web's voyeuristic charge. EN's Candidcam.com wholesales live streaming video from "hidden" cameras in adult clubs, tanning salons, dressing rooms, bathrooms, and elsewhere. "Hidden cams are the first thing we did that made us big. We were the first to come out with voyeuristic cameras," says Marshlack.
He went on to say, "In 1998, Voyeurdorm.com was our first residence, and is our landmark site. Basically, it's an interactive soap opera, with seven college girls, and you're living their life along with them, via 75 live cameras. The seven co-eds live in a Florida home, receive a weekly stipend from us, college tuition, and in return, they must chat three hours a day," Marshlack says.
The CEO explains dorm rules: "They can do anything that's legal within the house, but no drugs, no sex on camera, no in-person contact with users. They can have boys over until midnight, and have days off. There's a shower, bathroom, tanning room, and underwater pool cams. Other than that, they lead their normal lives. People want to get to know them, and get hooked on these girls," states Marshlack. He indicates the undergrads may be in undies (or less) and sexually suggestive for users, but aren't required to. "It's whatever the girls want to do. As long as it's legal, we don't have a problem with it," he maintains.
"Dudedorm.com began January, and has three gay, bi, and straight guys who live full time in a town house, plus visitors," says Marshlack. "It's similar to Voyeurdorm, with the same rules - they're living their normal lives, are required to chat, and people can watch them 24 hours a day. We have lots of female clientele for this site; women can see good-looking guys, chat with and get to know them."
Marshlack adds, "Around May, we took the same whole setup here and moved it to Costa Rica, creating Voyeurcasa.com, a dorm with nine Hispanic girls and 21 cameras. There are English- and Spanish-speaking chat rooms. Some of the senoritas are students, others fulltime employees. South of the border, some of their families make $150 a month, and for them to live in a beautiful house with a pool and weight room, and get a nice stipend, they love it. It's a great opportunity for them. They live in a mansion and are paid very well for down there, on the upper echelon of the pay scale - although less than residents of Voyeurdorm and Dudedorm," says Marshlack.
The savvy marketer taps into the burgeoning Spanish market in Spain, Puerto Rico, Mexico, America and elsewhere, by literally speaking their language - mi Voyerucasa es su Voyeurcasa, so to speak. "We've had a phenomenal response; Voyeurcasa hit the Spanish media," asserts Marshlack. "There aren't lots of sites where you can chat in Spanish. People like that, they can get into the voyeuristic life, and they don't have to worry about it being in English. There's a market in these countries; nobody really caters to them. It's huge in Miami. Forty percent of our clients are in the U.S., with Mexico second."
Voyeurcasa has no sound, while Voyeurdorm and Dudedorm have only cameras with sound in chat rooms. EN's dorm sites do group chats via keyboard. "We don't do any one-on-ones, because that would be an upsell. That's why webmasters are very comfortable buying our content � they know we're not going to steal their customer base when they put our stuff on their sites," states Marshlack.
Recently, EN launched Hollywoodgossip.com, a text and photo free site with breaking news about the stars. Hiddenhollywood.com is a new pay site featuring unflattering celeb video and pictures.
"Entertainment Network was originally started as a retail division," Marshlack explains. "We started a wholesale division that would private label certain aspects of what we do on retail, and allow other web sites to be able to buy them on a wholesale basis for a flat monthly fee, and that's where www.candidcam.com came from. It's done in an Internet wholesale interface. It's not customizable, but it sells the site you're coming from, and we don't promote our site in any way, with upsells, or anything like that. It's totally a program that goes on their site. They sell the memberships, they keep the money, they never have access to us. We don't even know who their customers are; we just have one customer: the web site," Marshlack points out.
The CEO went on to say, "CandidCam got so large, we needed to be able to host our own stuff and find someone capable of handling such a large volume of traffic, that we developed our own hosting company, Candidhosting.com. It's gotten very big in the last six months - we handle over 5,000 web sites - and we're in the process of taking Candidhosting public. We've got a letter of intent now, a public company we're going to buy, and that company will in turn buy Candidhosting.com and list it on NASDAQ by the end of 2000," announces Marshlack.
He is unconcerned about NASDAQ's plunge last year. "If you look at a lot of the Internet companies which took a dive, it's because they're not profitable," Marshlack notes. "We're putting something in there which is profitable, and we know how to run. Will I agree adult guys will have a hard time going public? Absolutely. You don't see me taking my adult company and putting it into a public entity. It's hard to get grandmas to buy stock in an adult company. But as a hosting company, we host many Fortune 500 companies, we host the Tampa Bay Buccaneer football team, and Hooters. We don't censor whether or not we host adult or non-adult sites. We're not the government - as long as they're legal sites, we'll host them. Just as AT&T did the 900 numbers," asserts Marshlack.
However, the voyeur ventures have encountered legal problems. Marshlack told AVN Online about his firm's lawsuit against CBS vis-�-vis Voyeurdorm and Big Brother. "We actually had CBS here and negotiated a deal with the network to do something, and they went ahead and did Big Brother," Marshlack alleges. "We're in a major Federal lawsuit against them, because we had a contract signed to do a partnership with them on a similar type TV show. We actually had a suit, which they settled in the meantime," he contends.
This is not Voyeurdom's sole legal imbroglio. "The City claims we need an adult use license, and that it's an adult business and shouldn't be in a residential neighborhood," Marshlack says. "We've already sued the City in Federal court." The suit was scheduled to go to trial in December.
Dudedorm, too, has been embroiled in litigation in the Pinellas Circuit Court, near St. Petersburg, Flordia. According to Marshlack, "Dudedorm opened in a town house, and the condominium complex sued us. It got a summary judgment to shut down Dudedorm. In late October, we went back in front of the judge, and the judge reversed his decision, and told them if you want to close Dudedorm, you've got to take them to court."
And speaking of courtroom trials and tribulations, EN did a live broadcast and chat costing $9.95 wherein O.J. Simpson took time out from "hunting down the real murderers" to make a killing via the AskOJ.com website, which Marshlack calls the largest, most successful event EN's ever done.
Despite legal brouhahas, EN thrives. "Entertainment Network currently employs 126 people, which includes residents at the firm's wired domiciles," boasts Marshlack. "The company's doing very well. As of October 2000, we had our largest month; we're actually having our largest year. Voyeurdorm's students went on a national personal appearance and media tour on a $250,000 wired bus we purchased, and that site gets over one million unique visitors daily."
As for the ethics of spycams and virtual voyeuring, Marshlack declares: "If Barbara Walters did a story on O.J., would she become immoral? I don't believe in censorship; I believe in giving everyone a platform to tell their side of things. That's why I'm in the business I'm in. For me to start limiting people, I think I become a censor. This isn't communism. It should be up to every end user or retailer to pick what they want to watch. Our content is ?R'-rated � we don't do hardcore stuff or anything you can't see on cable TV nightly. I don't see what I've done that isn't already accepted, but because I'm not a major network doing it, I'm frowned upon," Marshlack proclaims.
