By Christian Baekkelund
In 1991, a small camera attached to a computer in the University
of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory displayed regularly updated pictures
of a coffeepot (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/coffee/coffee.html)
for all on the Internet to see. In 1996, another camera attached to
the computer of a young junior in college named Jenni displayed Jenni's
everyday life with no censorship or interruptions to all who wished
to see it on the World Wide Web. Soon after the popularity of people
running webcams grew at astonishing rates to the point now where now
most people know at least someone who has one either on themselves,
their pets, or some other part of their day-to-day lives.
Allcam.com is one of the most extensive and popular database of listings
and links to these popular and numerous of websites featuring webcams.
As a directory, it serves quite well as it has both an extensive listing
and a quite easy to use interface. For an interface, Allcam.com provides
both a quick and simple search engine to look for webcams with a particular
keyword descriptor, as well as, a simple directory format with 10
top level categories expanding out to approximately 100 sub-categories
(much like Yahoo's well-known structure). When a webcam is selected,
the page then appears in a framed window that continues to display
the Allcam.com header and a banner ad across the top frame. A couple
additional small features also are well used at Allcam.com, such as
the "Editor's Choice" of a current interesting webcam, voting
on webcams such that they can then be indexed by "popularity,
and especially, CamCollections which allows users to organize many
webcams listed at Allcam.com into a single viewable window.
American culture currently seems infused with a strong streak of
voyeurism and exhibitionism. "Reality TV shows" seem to
be popping up at unbelievable rates, and with ever increasingly bizarre
premises. Much of this exhibitionism is even arguably tied back to
an older concept of "deserved fame" and the American dream;
in a country with no Royal Family and that has culture is dominated
by media stars, many people feel that they not only will most likely
get their "fifteen minutes of fame", many feel that they
even "deserve it" because they have been told such by the
very media they wish to be a part of (and an interesting counterview
to this idea is portrayed in the recent film, Fight Club). One of
the currently most popular of these webcams linked to from Allcam.com,
mandycam.tv, contains the quote "look into my life" which
provides a good example of what many of the maintainers of these webcams
wish the WWW public to do; amusingly, the featured exhibitionist of
this particular website, Mandy, maintains a "Big Brother"
reality TV fansite similarly exemplifying the voyeuristic nature of
this section of current pop culture.
As a directory, Allcam.com serves quite well, and the CamCollections
feature is especially useful and easy to use. A geographic directory
similar to that used at Webcamworld.com might be a desirable option,
but beyond that, I see very little room for improvement; the only
other potential problem with Allcam.com is their reliance on annoying
banner-ad sales for income as is currently similar to most of the
rest of the WWW.