webcams

Just when I think the webcam phenomenon has died out, it comes back in a new way. The late 90s was the height of webcamming: when Jennicam was still online and the webcam clearinghouse sites overflowed with cams of landscapes, pets, offices, rooms of all sorts. As the dotcom bubble burst and the novelty wore off, the cameras went out (Yorkiecam, the Trojan Room coffee pot, Jennicam, and others) and the clearinghouse sites filled up with tourist sites or porn; that seemed the end of the era. Then Justin.TV came along in 2006 and reinvigorated the form in new directions (lifecasting); it becomes the live feed version of YouTube (with the same issues of unauthorized content, apparently). But then Justin himself went offline, replaced by numbers of life cammers, but again the phenomenon seemed to fade.

So just when I’m ready to put the phenomenon into the “history” section of my cyberspace overview lecture notes, I discover that the number 1 paid app on iTunes is…you guessed it, a webcam app: Live Cams. Why? I haven’t a clue. Why now? Haven’t explored it, but need to think about what happens when live access is 24/7 and mobile, not just on the desktop, when the screen in one’s hand isn’t a projection (metaphorically) of a still or video image, but a live window onto another space. You’re not looking at the screen, but through it (I think Bolter and Grusin called this Hypermediation when you look at the screen, and transparent when you look through it).

By the way, I thought I saw an article on an iPhone app that allows you to see through the camera of another iPhone. Anyone catch the name of it?