(Below is Part 2 of the WildEarth.tv case study, an interview with founder Graham Wallington. The first part of the WildEarth.tv case study can be found here.)

In a webinar last week with Hubspot and on their Inbound Marketing Blog, David Meerman Scott emphasized, among other points, the importance of giving up control of your message if you want your ideas to spread. It’s no coincidence that Graham stresses the very same — I think these guys are onto something here. (Any bold emphasis below is mine.)

Your web site says that you came up with the concept of WildEarth.tv ten years ago at the Djuma Game Reserve. Tell us a little about your background and what your connection was to the Djuma Reserve at that time.

Yes, in 1998 I decided to try and set up a LIVE webcam at a waterhole in the African wilderness and with the help of Paul Clifford and the permission of my good friends Jurie and Pippa Moolman (the owners of Djuma), we installed a 30 second refreshing JPEG webcam at Djuma. We called the company AfriCam and this was the beginning of a phenomenon that just grew and grew. From the very early days, the viewers of this LIVE wildlife content wanted to communicate with each other, but in those early days the only social tools available were message boards and chat rooms. To this day there are still people following our broadcasts that were there on the very first day back in September 1998.
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