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Bonaire WebCams Offers First Ever Searchable WebCam Image Archives

BONAIRE, N.A. - February 8, 2002 - Caribbean WebCams, LLC announced this week that it has made a new technology breakthrough in the arena of on-line WebCams. This new innovation involves offering the public access to archives containing images captured by its world-famous Bonaire WebCams over the last 14 months. These archives, which have been kept since December 1, 2000, are fully searchable by date and time on a per-WebCam basis, and apply to all four of the existing Bonaire WebCams™, including the Bonaire ReefCam™ - the world's first coral reef WebCam installed and operating in the open ocean. The Bonaire WebCams Web site at http://www.BonaireWebCams.com provides live, 24 hour a day viewing of several above water and one underwater scene from the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire - an island known for its excellent diving and snorkeling.

The 14 months of stored WebCams archives take up over 60GB of space on Caribbean WebCams, LLC's Web servers operating in the United States, and storage space has been conserved via the use of intelligent image analysis software which culls all images that are too dark to show any meaningful content. The company plans to continue archiving images with visible content indefinitely.

"No other WebCam company in the world currently maintains an archive which contains virtually every image they have ever displayed for users, never mind having such an archive be searchable by the public," stated Dan Senie, CTO of Caribbean WebCams, LLC.

"And, until now, no tourist destination in the world offered a way for visitors to relive parts of their vacation via the Internet. But with the Bonaire WebCams, and our new searchable archives, Bonaire visitors who pose for the Bonaire ReefCam or StreetCam can retrieve images of themselves and share them with friends and family via the Internet," added Jake Richter, Co-Founder and Software Development Manager of Caribbean WebCams.

The searchable WebCams archives allow Bonaire visitors to the cameras to look up images of themselves on the WebCams, meaning that vacationers to the island of Bonaire, the Caribbean diving and snorkeling capital, who pose for the ReefCam underwater or for the topside StreetCam™, for example, can look up the images captured of them upon their return from vacation.

Access to the fully searchable WebCams archives requires that the user become a member of the Bonaire WebCams site, with such memberships starting at US$4.95 for one week's full access to the archives, or $24.95 per year. A free Basic membership is also available for those want to view the previous hour's worth of archive image information - ideal for regular WebCam watchers who want to make sure they haven't missed any of the action while away from their computers.

Additionally, Bonaire WebCams members have the ability to send "ePostCards" of their favorite images to anyone they wish as an on-line postcard, complete with a personal message. An example of such an ePostCard can be found at http://My.BonaireWebCams.com/epsample1 .

Feedback from early users of the searchable archives and ePostCards has been overwhelmingly positive. "The archive is wicked nice!" said an exuberant Rusty Clark of Massachusetts, and Sarah Bryett of England said "I've been sending out e-cards left, right and center of [us] on the StreetCam… It's so much fun! I love the way all the pics come up on the screen at once for particular day… the search facility is great too!"

The new Bonaire WebCams membership option, which provides unrestricted access to the searchable archives, also includes a special "download" function to make it easier for users to download live and archived images to their computers, and future plans include customizable live WebCam image pages, image galleries, and on-line shopping for items such as Bonaire WebCams t-shirts. More information on Bonaire WebCams Membership can be found at http://My.BonaireWebCams.com/MembershipTypes.php .

About the Bonaire WebCams
The Bonaire WebCams Web site is among the most popular Web sites featuring Caribbean content, with over 75,000 visitors and 2.4 million page view per month. The Web site is provided with WebCam images from a proprietary image capture server on Bonaire, as well as current water temperature and weather information. Such content from Bonaire is updated every two minutes. Fans of the WebCams gather on BonaireTalk, a lively on-line discussion group.

About Caribbean WebCams, LLC
Caribbean WebCams, LLC, owner and operator of the Bonaire WebCams and the award winning Bonaire ReefCam, specializes in all aspects of commercial WebCam set-up and installation for resorts and travel destinations. Company headquarters are located in Norfolk, Virginia in the U.S.A. Caribbean WebCams information can be found at http://www.CaribbeanWebCams.com, and the company may be contacted at info@CaribbeanWebCams.com or by phone at +1-703-783-8370 or by FAX at +1-703-783-8371 in the U.S. or by phone at +599-7-176773 on Bonaire.

Links to Related Site:

Bonaire WebCams: http://www.BonaireWebCams.com
BonaireTalk WebCams Discussion: http://www.BonaireTalk.com/webcams
Official Bonaire Web Site: http://www.InfoBonaire.com

 

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"ReefCam" and "StreetCam" is a trademark of Caribbean WebCams, LLC.


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