Earthling

Note: The below is an archived entry from Earthling, formerly EarthLink's official blog. The blog itself has been decommissioned and is no longer updated, and comments are trackbacks are no longer accepted.

As of October 1 of this year, EarthLink has been proudly sponsoring the live Panda Cam at Zoo Atlanta. At that time we took over for temporary stopgap support generously offered by CNN. Lun Lun and her new cub are viewed remotely in all of their cuteness by thousands of visitors each day.

On Monday, Mark Davis reported in a blog article on AJC.com that the Cam will now be operating from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Eastern time, rather than full 24 hour coverage. The change in operating time is due to ongoing staffing and bandwidth costs that have outpaced zoo resources, and was planned independently from EarthLink's sponsorship agreement in October. Judging from the activity on the AJC's Panda Watch page, the Cam has developed an enthusiastic following. Some of the commenters to the AJC blog article mistook the change as related to EarthLink's coming on board. While I empathize with those who want 24-hour live Lun Lun coverage, according to the zoo the costs associated with staff to keep the Pandas well in frame and the resources involved in supporting live simultaneous streams have made the new hours necessary.

I called Zoo Atlanta PR Director Susan Elliott for her thoughts. Susan appreciated the passion of the Cam following, and explained that the sponsorship has ensured the Cam can support the thousands of viewers it gets each day. According to Susan, "Without EarthLink's support, the number of viewers we'd be able to accomodate would be extremely limited."