By William Fellows
EarthCam, the portal which provides a fast expanding, searchable index of indoor and outdoor live internet cameras, plus webcasting services and equipment, is now operating as a standalone unit and is heading towards an IPO. Brian Cury, co- founder and president of the 1996 startup is also president of internet design and constancy UN Productions Inc, which is co- located with EarthCam in Hackensack, New Jersey, along with kisok, arcade and interactive gaming company Video A Go-Go Entertainment Systems Inc. EarthCam is perhaps best known for the live views of New York’s Times Square it hosts plus the live feeds it provides to Microsoft Corp’s Sidewalk.com web site from ten cameras situated in US metropolitan areas. The Times Square feed supposedly attracts one million page views a day and is EarthCam’s most popular live feed.
Although the company offers equipment and services for webcasting and creating and hosting live images from internet cameras, the majority of its revenue is derived from banner ads on its web site and sponsorship for webcasts. It’s looking to add more content and feeds to become the de facto portal for live internet images to attract more advertising revenue – it is proud of the rate at which its database of visitors and content providers is growing – but doesn’t appear to be majoring on building out services for creating live internet image feeds specifically. The exact nature of the financial relationship between the three companies isn’t clear and the 20-person EarthCam didn’t respond to further inquiries.
