AfriCam.com will be back on the Internet tomorrow, minus its live streaming and some of its cameras. The site, hugely popular for its live footage of wildlife, disappeared from the Internet this week after the company announced its SA services had applied for provisional liquidation.
AfriCam`s offshore business is still in operation, and will continue running the scaled-down site and associated services. However, the live streaming subscription service has been dropped and certain of the game reserve cameras will no longer be operational.
CEO Peter Armitage says talks are underway to decide which cameras will be retained and which will go. "The site`s activities will continue on a smaller scale," he adds. However, local offices are closing and around 40 staff members have been retrenched.
"The Internet is an incredibly difficult place to make money," Armitage told ITWeb this morning. "Some of the sound business plans we had in place fell through. For example, an investor reneged on a $15 million agreement earlier this year, which severely impacted on our plans. In addition, the AfriCam subscription service was probably ahead of its time."
The subscription service sold live wildlife streaming to viewers at $5.99 a month. Armitage says a total of 4 000 months worth of subscriptions were sold to viewers, most of them in the US and UK. "This was a sound business model," he says, "but it would have taken around a year for it to break even. We didn`t have the time."
Armitage has not given up on AfriCam, saying that negotiations are continuing with potential investors in SA. "Our future will be driven completely by market conditions," he concludes.
Share
