The proliferation of inexpensive web cams is transforming the Internet — and changing the way people stay in touch.

Rob Jackson made a whirlwind tour of Asia earlier this year on a business trip, jetting his way to Tokyo, Beijing, Taipei, Hong Kong and Seoul over a two-week period. Yet every day, the 33-year old tech-industry product manager managed to make eye contact with his wife and 3-year-old son back home in Massachusetts.

His secret: an inexpensive Internet-ready video camera and some free software. At every hotel room along the way, Jackson rigged the lightweight camera to his laptop, sent a quick notification to his family over the Internet, and sat down to chat as if he was having dinner across the dining-room table.

“When you see their face and they can see yours, it makes a huge difference,” says Jackson. “It's a much more personal exchange.”

Welcome to the world of the web cam, a proliferating breed of cheap, portable cameras that look like enlarged eyeballs, plug easily into computers and transmit reasonably decent video images halfway across the globe — or next door. Propelled by broadband Internet access, web cams are popping up everywhere, transforming the Internet into a highly personalized multimedia extravaganza.

Jackson may work in the high-tech trade, but that's hardly a requirement for dabbling with do-it-yourself video over the Internet. Dell, HP, Toshiba and other computer makers are building web cams right into new laptop models. Or, like Jackson, you can easily hook up an external web cam and begin broadcasting video signals in minutes thanks to ready-made software from AOL Instant Messenger, Microsoft's MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, and other sources.

Plenty already have. In 2006, web cam sales for manufacturer Logitech passed the 25-million mark. Parks Associates Inc., a Dallas research firm that tracks digital technologies, says there are nearly as many people today uploading video across the Internet as there are patronizing online gambling sites.

“We're witnessing a phenomenon that will have recognizable cultural and social effects across the country,” says Parks director of research John Barrett. “Anything you do can be recorded and uploaded, where it is readily available to your boss, your family, your church. Ready or not, the camera's now rolling.”

Certainly various politicians and celebrities have found to their dismay that the camera is always on these days. Make a gaffe on video today, and millions may be downloading it tomorrow.

People are planting web cams everywhere, from a yard full of chickens in England (ourchickens.com has been live from the henhouse 24 hours a day since 2002) to chilly Keystone, Wyoming, where meteorologist Don Day installed a web cam in front of his remote cabin six years ago to take pictures every 30 minutes and publish them on a web site he maintains. Day makes a living tracking detailed weather metrics and data, but he says when it comes to getting a sense of what Mother Nature's really up to, nothing beats a picture. He says about 500 visitors a day show up at his web site to check the camera's pictures.

The everyday uses of web cams are as varied as daily life itself. New York singles use a live video web cam stationed across from the intersection of Broadway and 46th Street in Time Square to make a video record of their blind dates. By planning to meet under the camera's unwavering view, people figure they can discourage undesirables.

It's now possible for pet owners to keep an eye on pooch from 24-hour web cams stationed in each of 23 “luxury suites” maintained by Wag Hotels, an upscale boarding facility for dogs and cats in Sacramento, Calif. President Joel Leineke says the cameras are popular with vacationing pet owners who want assurances their pets are as happy as, well, dogs in a hotel. “They can be in Istanbul and stop in at an Internet café and check in and see that their dog is doing well,” says Leineke.

Web cams are also an affordable variation on the long-pursued “picture phone” first exhibited to the public by AT&T at the 1964 World's Fair in Queens, N.Y. For anxious parents who like to check in with college students or far-flung families that want to stay connected, these live, interactive video “conversations” represent an increasingly popular application (and a source of worry for college students whose dorm rooms are on full display during chats with home.)

But the most sensational application of web cam technology is found in the hugely popular phenomenon of self-publishing video content through video-sharing sites like YouTube, which Google bought for a staggering $1.65 billion last year. Started in 2005 with a single video, YouTube now provides 100 million videos to users every day and posts 65,000 new ones. YouTube and sites like it have spawned their own stars, changed the political landscape, impacted the news business and set the video paradigm — once filtered by studios, networks, TV executives, producers, editors and writers — on its ear. Now everyone with a camcorder, a web cam or a video-equipped cell phone can be a star — or a reporter.

But it's sharing of another kind that may drive web cams into every home in America. For travelers like Jackson, there's nothing that beats the proud-parent joy of getting to see a child from halfway across the world. On that Far East tour, Jackson was able to describe to his son what it was like to visit the Great Wall of China — much to the youngster's visible delight. “The picture quality wasn't great,” Jackson says. “But it was good enough to see a smile.”