In addition to use for personal videoconferencing, it was quickly realised that World Wide Web users enjoyed viewing images from cameras set up by others elsewhere in the world. While the term "webcam" refers to the technology generally, the first part of the term ("web-") is often replaced with a word describing what can be viewed with the camera, such as a nestcam or streetcam.
Today there are millions of webcams that provide views into homes, offices and other buildings as well as providing panoramic views of cities (Metrocams) and the countryside. Webcams are used to monitor traffic with TraffiCams, the weather with WeatherCams and even volcanoes with VolcanoCams. Webcam aggregators allow viewers to search for specific webcams based on geography or other criteria.
Webcams connected to PCs can act as web-accessible cameras with certain software; the software uploads pictures to an FTP server, from which they can be made accessible to anyone, over the web.
Usually, this kind of software is programmed to work with almost every webcam. This software can be configured in many ways, and will often include options for image size and quality, overlaying logos, and time stamping images. Many different programs to do this are available, some of them free and open source.
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