"Dokk" - who derives his moniker from the character played by Bernie Kopell on the original Love Boat TV series - has had a great deal of experience in the adult entertainment business. He's been involved in everything from selling Web service accounts and dee-jaying at strip clubs, to hosting and running a 24-hour Web-radio station. Most recently, he partnered with the "Fantasyman" to form TV-X.com (www.tv-x.com), where Web masters can log-on to ask questions, talk shop, and view coverage of Web-related events around the country.
How did you get your start in the adult Web business?
I had a BBS for about six years, and that when on to become an ISP. I didn't even know how to make a Web page at first, but I started selling Web service accounts. We were the first Internet providers in our county, as a BBS.
I had retired from private investigations and as a lark, I took a job as a strip club DJ. So, one day, I was in the strip club and the boss threw down a stack of paper work at me from some people that were selling live adult video feeds and he said, 'Can we do this cheaper?' and I said 'Well sure, I'll take a look at it.' So we hollowed out a box and we put a quick cam camera in it and we mounted it at end of the our main runway stage. People said that it was a really great feed, but they wrote in and said that they were tired of looking at peoples' feet. And that's how the adult business and the Web business came together for me.
Tell us about that first Web site.
We were absolutely, totally clueless. I didn't know anything about a YNOT; there wasn't really any sort of a support organization that I knew of at the time... I remember making each charge slip out by hand. It became an extremely sobering experience. I spent money and spent money, and finally I got down to about twenty dollars in the bank account and I was ready to give up. In a moment of desperation, as my goodbye to the Web world that had so frustrated me, I put up a page [that] was supposed to be a joke, something like, 'Cum-guzzling shaved-teen pregnant celebrity-hookers on crack.' It was the most ridiculous thing I could ever think of in my entire life, and I walked away from it. And I remember looking and seeing that the server was all lit up and people were coming through that page. So that's when the light when on in my head. I turned it into a free site and it was profitable from then on.
How did your partnership with the "Fantasyman" come about?
The Fantasyman and I had been friends for a long time and he was someone that I could trust and depend on. That was one of the reasons I partnered with him on the TV-X site. We started doing Sharky Live from Cybererotica and Sharky. We talk about the industry and whatever Web masters want to talk about, at 4:30 p.m. Pacific, 7:30 Eastern, on Monday and Wednesday. The way that the story ties in is that we were searching for a provider to supply Sharky Live (www.sharkys.com) with reliable streaming-media services. So I said let me take a shot at it, and I took over supplying that for them and have been ever since.
What about your other projects, the music site and TV-X?
Well, one off- shoot of the Fantasyman partnership was our own 24-hour radio station, albumside.com (www.albumside.com). It broadcasts 100% legal music 24-hours-a-day and the Web masters love it. The next step was TV and video, so that's how we got into TV-X. Its main purpose is to help Web masters who get stuck at home, who can't go to conventions and when it's over all they have are a few thumbnails to look at. I thought we could do much better. Now, with TV-X, they have hours of video to browse through, to see people they know or to 'meet' new ones. ia2000 in Miami was the first thing that we shot.
Tell us a bit about the technology you use for TV-X.
We started shooting the video pieces and archiving in a multi-grade format, 28.8kbps modem up through ISDN, and a then a 100k straight feed, and it turned out to be a great big hit. The Web masters love it.
What are your goals for the site?
To do absolutely everything I can to push the technological envelope to the next level and to use TV-X as my test bed for streaming-media technology. To prove that [a particular] technology is either viable or not viable. And to provide Web masters with more than a token of a passing convention or other events.
