A sad announcement on Twitter this week, folks, as this week the world says goodbye to one of the longest operating public webcams.
After 25 years of solid service, Jeff Schwartz and Dan Wong’s FogCam that they set up in 1994 while still enrolled as students at San Francisco State University.
Jeff Schwartz told the publication SFGate that, “The bottom line is that we no longer have a really good view or place to put the camera…The university tolerates us, but they don’t really endorse us and so we have to find secure locations on our own..”
As The Verge points out, the 25-year service of the FogCam is really darn impressive when you consider just how much the Internet and the world has changed since it was first installed.
Another famous webcam that the website cites, the Cambridge University Coffee Pot Webcam, might have beat the FogCam to the punch when it came to debuting but the much longer service of the former makes it just as legendary as the latter. For those of you that don’t know, the Cambridge University Coffee Pot Webcam was a side thing by a professor there who wanted to check on the status of the office coffee pot, of all things.
Since the announcement, users across the Internet have expressed their sadness about the ultimate fate of the FogCam but many also praised the team for their dedication in keeping something going for so long.
Of course, we’d love to know your thoughts. Do remember when webcams first came out? Tell us what you think of the FogCam in the comments below.
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