By Peter Berton

MONTREAL – When it comes to the ups and downs of the adult online industry, webcam software developer Mark Prince has experienced them all. As the driving force behind 2Much.net and its LiveCamNetwork webcam software since the 1990s, Prince pioneered high-quality webcamming at a time when less-than-VGA resolution was considered acceptable.

The company’s innovations led to the rapid growth of 2Much.net’s downtown Montreal office, which housed many webcam girls in a chic, stylish and employee-friendly environment. Such was Prince’s success that his operation became the focus of Webdreams, a Canadian-produced reality-TV show that allowed viewers a peek behind the scenes of online porn.

Webdreams is still available online, but the glory days it portrayed took a sudden downhill slide when 2Much found itself facing tax charges that eventually wiped out Prince financially and emotionally, even though he won the court case.

Although his big Montreal office (and its many webcam girls) are gone for now, Prince continues to thrive in the adult industry as a webcam software developer.

“Business is good,” he told YNOT.com. “Business in the industry as a whole has been up and down over the years, but we have been lucky enough to be in the right segment in the industry, I guess. I really cannot complain.”

YNOT: How did you get into the webcam industry?

Mark Prince: Back in the 1990s, I was running a small computer sales and service business. A good friend of mine got me connected to the internet back when terms like “gopher,” “archie” and “veronica” were associated with it.

I sold my computer business when the web started taking off and taught myself how to build websites. I soon discovered adult websites, learned how they worked and built one for myself that worked very well. When friends started asking me to build adult websites for them, I turned it into a business. It wasn’t long before I had some big companies knocking at my door. I started getting contracts left and right and needed to start hiring people to help.

While doing this, I found myself getting bored and wishing that I could use the internet to be more interactive. I started looking for ways to marry chat services like IRC and webcams like the Quickcam.

This work led to you develop interactive webcamming software. How did your first launch go?

The very first site we put together was terrible, technologically speaking. I found a girl from Ireland who was willing to broadcast herself in glorious 240×180 resolution to our site.

We began accepting “VIP chats” almost immediately, but in order to switch the customer from one “room” to another required an operator, FTP and some quick edits in HTML — every time. It was ridiculous, but it was amazing. That was in 1997, and I was selling live video-chat porn on a technology that most people still had not yet heard of. I felt like the world’s nerdiest rock star.

What was it like back in the good old days when you had a studio full of webcam girls around you all the time?

At one time we employed 29 of the most beautiful women in Montreal and had a very carefully planned schedule for each girl. Despite having grown the company to 10 full-time employees [including] programmers and marketing [staff], we still planned the schedules of each chat model to maximize profits. Different girls would arrive at different times, log in and chat and log out about four hours later, like clockwork. The studios were very clean, and everything was run with professional care.

That doesn’t mean it was stuffy — far from it. The girls were allowed to jump into each other’s chat rooms, which made for some impromptu girl-on-girl action. Cameras were always clicking away to capture the fun. We had a very lax alcohol policy, which means they could enjoy some wine while chatting, which really helped things along.

About twice a year, we had live broadcasts of all-girl parties. Every girl we employed would be invited to a paid party for a full night of free chat as a gift to all of our customers. We would set up extra cameras around a section where all the girls could hang out and be on camera together. We quickly learned to monetize these special shows by allowing customers to buy shooters for the girls and have them drink them online. Most of the girls were drinking tequila, but we had a few specially marked bottles that contained only water, of course, to try to keep things in control.

We also threw a few industry parties. We had a company come in and convert our entire office space into a nightclub complete with lighting and very, very loud sound. As a tribute to all of the female chat models we had working for us, we hired a bunch of male dancers from one of our clients to come in and dance for them. The parties, I think, really got us some extra notice.

Then things went sideways, and you had to close your Montreal facility. What happened?

Our seemingly endless growth peaked at almost 40 people, and then things took a downward turn and kept going. The value of the Canadian dollar compared to the U.S. dollar fell, the economy started to head south and we got into a very expensive legal battle with Revenue Quebec all at the same time.

Auditors who did not understand our business model tried to classify us as a cellular telephone company and insisted that we should have charged [goods and services tax] and [provincial sales tax] to customers worldwide — like roaming charges — and then slapped us with a bill for almost half a million dollars.

We hired the best law firm in the city, fought and won our case, but it took four years and a shitload of money. We had to cut way back on expenses, and the constant stress of the ordeal wreaked havoc on my personal life.

After the tax case, what happened next?

Once everything was finally settled, I decided to take things on a different path. Instead of re-opening large offices and studios and doing everything the same way all over again, I chose instead to concentrate solely on the software and technology side and work only with a core group of talented people. Running the big office was too time-consuming and too stressful, despite the fun times, and today chat models have good enough hardware and webcams and can easily chat from their homes.

I’m really a shy computer geek and not very social anyway, so spending time in front of my computers, working hard and making deals is really where I am most comfortable. And besides, I learned the hard way about the importance of keeping costs down and being ready for anything.

There seems to be growing interest in web-connected sex toys. Are those finding a way into your business?

No, not yet. The technology is there, for sure, but we the hardware providers we have talked to had licensing pricing that made it a less interesting service to pursue.

Other hardware providers are just downright scary. For example, a few years ago we were approached by someone who claimed to be a plastic surgeon out of New York who asked us to develop software for his remote-control sex toy. We agreed in principal only, but asked to see the hardware before agreeing to anything.

About a week or so later we received a black box, which was essentially a piston with a dildo attached to it. We hooked it up and turned it on and it worked surely enough, but the box was just a really scary device that was poorly built. The piston action was way too strong and didn’t have any kind of clutch or pressure adjustment, which could have hurt a female chat model using it.

The glue that attached the dildo to the mount was dissolving into a white dust, which maybe could have been toxic. They did not say what the glue was. Even worse, a long, sharp screw normally used for wood attached the dildo to the piston. After some use it could have worn through the edge of the dildo.

When we called the company to ask if this was some kind of prototype, they became very mad and defensive. The conversation fell apart at that point, and we returned the box.

For sure though, one future possibility in the webcam business is interconnected toys. The technology is here, now, and toys are safe. We hope to work with a reputable toymaker in the near future.

After all you’ve been through, what have you learned about people?

I’ve learned that outsiders have a very inaccurate perception of the adult online industry. They still view the porn industry as dirty, crooked or morally ambiguous, at best. The reality is, of course, that most people who get into the industry are smart and driven, and they treat this business with the same amount of seriousness and dedication that any business requires.

Business people know this, and at least in Montreal are more than receptive to adult. We have never had a problem when it comes to renting locations, obtaining insurance or working with banks.

Closed-minded people, on the other hand, are on the wrong side of history. They have missed very significant changes in culture over the past 20 years, and I expect they are missing out on fun and profitable business, too.

What’s your impression of the health of the webcam industry as a whole?

It’s going very well. A lot of subscription and membership sites are suffering because of all the free content available out there, and tube sites are making it much harder for content producers. Lucky for us, a lot of porn consumers are not interested in just seeing pictures or videos of just a random girl’s random boobs. Instead, they crave actual interaction with a living, breathing person, which is something photos and recorded videos cannot deliver.

We see lots of customers exploring personal sexual fantasies with chat models, and though not unexpected, we see customers “just talking” with chat models. A typical chat session lasts about 50 minutes, with the sex part of the chat lasting only about 10 minutes or so. The remaining 40 minutes is just pure conversation. The $5 and $6 price points do not seem to faze customers at all. In fact, they are happy to pay the price knowing the model gets a big piece of it.

So the glory days aren’t gone for good?

The glory days are not gone. We sued and won our case. It didn’t wipe us out, but we definitely had to cut back. Otherwise, we would have been wiped out for sure.

We do plan to go back to office and studio space, but we plan to do things differently and much more carefully. For example, our business is now more diversified. Though we have fewer chat girls in Montreal, there are more signed up from around the world, and instead of restricting our software to our own use, we now license it to other sites.

Things have shifted, for sure. But growth is back, and steady.