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A camera hooked up to the world wide web
showing regularly updated pictures of the subject in focus. People have
pointed webcams at all sorts of unusual things, including Coke machines,
fishtanks, Antarctica, busy traffic routs and, most intriguingly,
themselves. Jennifer Ringley, in particular, achieved worldwide fame with
her Jennicam, which allows high-tech voyeurs to spy on her going about her
unremarkable daily business. The prospect of watching her do this without
any clothes on, a rare but nonetheless recorded event, is apparently
enticing enough to persuade thousands of people to pay her $90 a year for the
privilege. Anyone seeking to duplicate her achievement can buy a suitable
camera for around $150, but they should consider that the amount of traffic
needed to become profitable is substantial and the market is now flooded
with Jennicam look-alikes. This is why just about the only businesses making
money from webcams are pornography sites.
Personal webcams have
grown enormously popular in the last few years. Used princilally for
one-to-one conversations, especially in conjunction with instant messaging
software, such cameras are now commonly supported by chat rooms and
portals
run by companies such as Yahoo. They can also be used to create miniature
versions of Jennicame-like public sites, although they are usually of
limited quality and have bandwidth restrictions attached. Some even double
up as low-end digital cameras, adding to their all-round attraction.
Manufacturers of personal webcams deny that their principal use is for
encounters of the salacious kind, a claim that might be doubted by anyone
interested enough to visit one of the many adult chat rooms that proliferate
on the web. |
