501derful.org
According to a new Pew Internet & American Life report, one out of six American adult internet users (16%) have gone online to view another person or a place via a web cam. That translates into roughly 21 million people who have viewed material on web cams and on any given day, about two million internet users that have checked out remote places or people by using webcams.
Imagine the possibilities — being able to watch a live colonoscopy, taking a virtual tour on cancer.org of the NCIC or a tour of cancer care facilities, being able to see what your NCIC operator looks like (put a face with the voice), seeing a Look Good…Feel Better session. Between possibilities like this and podcasting, we are on our way towards some version of ACS TV — the technology and options for users will lead us there, whether we are organizationally ready or not. My hunch is we will be ready.
Well, when I turned 50 I got a flex-sigmoidoscopy. As I lay on the table I got to see the camera traveling down my lower colon like some weird pink subway tunnel. They made a tape, but I didn’t ask for a dupe. I didn’t know I might oneday want to put it on the Internet!
I’ve been thinking of hooking a webcam up to my laptop just because I think it’s time to start increasing the bandwidth of interaction. If you get one that’d be two of us. Maybe we could start a movement.