|
Content
|
| Quality : |
12.0 / 20 |
| Quantity : |
11.0 / 15 |
| Entertain : |
11.5 / 15 |
| Updates : |
9.0 / 10 |
| Exclusive : |
5.0 / 05 |
| Download : |
2.5 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
51.0 / 70 |
| Navigation |
| Easy : |
8.0 / 10 |
| Features : |
3.5 / 05 |
| Design : |
3.0 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
14.5 / 20 |
| Other |
| Originality : |
4.0 / 05 |
| Hard Facts : |
3.5 / 05 |
| sub-total : |
7.5 / 10 |
Scoring Criteria
|
|
|
1. No viewing limits or per show costs.
2. Ability for users to broadcast.
1. Poor quality video.
2. Not enough users.
"A fine alternative to other more expensive camsites, just with fewer hot chicks." |
|
|
AnyWebcam.com is a community website consisting of hundreds of users chatting and broadcasting live on their webcams. I was a little confused when I first visited and didn't really know where to begin. A quick read of their introductory paragraph told me that AnyWebcam is a comprehensive webcam site that allows users to watch others on cam, chat with them, broadcast their own shows and interact via message board. Sounds pretty cool! With webcams all the rage right now surely a site like this is in great demand.
First things first. AnyWebcam has a free 30 day trial that is a good place to start. You don't even have to enter your credit card info to use this free trial so you don't have to worry about rebilling or anything. The free trial gives you access to all of the basic features including viewing all the webcams and participating in the live chats. If you don't mind paying $1 a month for the standard membership, you get enhanced search features. For $10 a month you can get the silver membership which will give you the ability to view multiple cams at once, 6 times faster cam viewing speed, the ability to record other people's shows on your own pc, private broadcasting and your own website and domain name. For $17 a month you can get gold access which gives you the ability to create your own chat room, a buddy list and the ability to ban certain users from viewing your webcam. Of course, there are many other features here but those are the highlights. It is difficult to compare the pricing here to other sites as there aren't very many other similar sites that we've looked at yet. Still, I feel the pricing is pretty fair. The main point of this site is to view other users webcams and you can do that for only $1 a month which is pretty reasonable to me.
When you log-in, you first need to accept their little script to play on your computer. What this does is let you know who is online in realtime. It stays unobtrusively on the left of your browser. Users are categorized by gender, location and sexuality. A few quick clicks will have you viewing cams in no time. There were around 330 users online while I was visiting and of those, 241 were men and 41 were women (the rest where couples and groups). Obviously there is a large majority of male users here which seems to be pretty standard on sites like this. I also noticed an older crowd here. It could just be that I'm viewing it during the day and maybe more young people are on at night but I feel I should mention that there weren't very many hot young thangs online when I was viewing. However, the upside is that most of the people who were broadcasting seemed to be doing so purely out of exhibitionsistic tendencies and they didn't spend the whole time trying to squeeze a dime out of you or direct you to a paysite. A definite plus! This is an adult site and there were quite a few men who were completely nude and masturbating for their camera. The women were a bit more clothed but still did some flashing here and there. I would assume the more intimate shows take place privately. The video quality was a little on the poor side. I viewed it at both the standard and silver speeds and while the silver helped the quality quite a bit it was still very grainy. Also, the video display was very small, perhaps around 200x250. You could enlarge the video but it then became extremely pixelated. This was disappointing.
If you'd like to interact with those you are viewing you have a few options. You can find them in a chatroom or you can private message them. There were over 250 chatrooms open when I visited but only 44 had people chatting in them. The rooms had anywhere from 2 to 50 users in them at a time. There were a few rooms dedicated to certain topics but the majority just had general chitchat and flirting. If message boards are more your thing there is also a general discussion board worth checking out. The board is fairly active but don't expect lots of X rated discussion. Weather, travel and current events seem to rule most of the posts. AnyWebcam also sponsors some online picture contests but there didn't seem to be any competition going on currently.
What makes AnyWebcam a bit more unique from so many other live feed sites is that all users have the opportunity to broadcast themselves on this site. Unfortunently, I don't have a webcam hooked up here so I was unable to test the broadcasting myself. It looks like you have to download a broadcasting program to begin. The directions were pretty simple and I imagine that this capability is one of the biggest draws for this site.
AnyWebcam.com is an interesting community site that will appeal to the voyeur and exhibitionist in all of us. The other camsites that feature pay-per-minute setups are certainly more appealing in terms of number of members and somewhat in terms of quality. However, at $2-$3 a minute the cost of those sites quickly becomes outrageous. At AnyWebcam you can view as many cams for as long as you like for free (or at least for a reasonable monthly cost). I think the largest drawback here is the relatively low number of users. Hopefully more users will find their way to AnyWebcam and will help turn it into a very interesting live cammunity.
| 1st Follow-Up Review |
Review: 01-20-06 |
It's been so long (two years) since our last look at Any Webcam that I can hardly remember my thoughts from my initial visit. It does look like there's been a redesign in that time because it definitely looks a little cleaner and more pro than I remember. Reading through the site, it does appear that version 4 of Any Webcam was indeed launched last October. They've added a search and some other features that make navigating and finding other cammers that much easier. The community is still going very strong. There are several message boards, photo competitions, chats, and of course hundreds of cams going to keep you busy. Customer service isn't something we can normally cover in our reviews but I think it's worth mentioning that the staff here really seems to be on the ball. Reading through the news archive, it looks like they are constantly tweaking their software to make it better suit the member requests. Very cool. My score is going up for this unique website.
Score increased from 69.4 to 74.0.
|
