DATE: Wednesday, October 8, 1997            TAG: 9710080045

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Larry Maddry 

                                            LENGTH:   82 lines

YOU SAY GOODBYE TO PRIVACY WHEN YOU LIVE IN FULL VIEW OF WORLD

IF YOU'RE ONE of those Internet surfers who spends so much time browsing from site to site that friends tell you to ``get a life,'' I bring good news.

Now you can get a life.

The life belongs to Jenni. And you can get her around the clock at: http:// www.jennicam.org.

Her name is Jennifer Ringley. The 21-year-old lives and works in an electronic fishbowl - the high-tech version of women who swim in a tank for the entertainment of bar customers.

But with a difference. Jennifer has a life of her own: she designs Web pages on the Internet for some very upscale customers, including National Geographic.

But her uniqueness is her willingness to share everything she does in her bedroom - from scratching her nose to making up her bed while naked - with her viewers via a camera that snaps a photo of her every minute.

Working from her 800-square-foot apartment in Washington, D.C., she is sharing her work, her bad-hair days, her boyfriend, her queen-size bed, her nail-biting, her nose-blowing, her bill-paying - in short, her life.

And why is she giving up her privacy?

``I don't feel I'm giving up my privacy. Just because people can see me doesn't mean it affects me - I'm still alone in my room no matter what,'' she says.

Washington Post writer Linton Weeks says Jenni ``is living the youthful narcissist's dream on a grand scale. She's the ultimate exhibitionist performing for the ultimate voyeur - the eyes of the world.''

Well, a small chunk of it, anyway. The web site receives about 100 million hits a week, Jenni says.

About 5,000 viewers send her a $15 annual fee to see a new picture of Jenni every three minutes. And she says it takes that kind of money to keep the web site going.

``If anybody says I'm doing this to get rich quick, I assure you that I plan to stay poor,'' she said. ``I'm not making a penny on this.''

People-watching has its appeal for Net surfers, and fixed-camera sites have been established on beaches and in bars. One web site offers viewers a camera's eye glimpse of anyone who happens to purchase a soft drink from a vending machine. (Ain't computer technology grand?. Surely this is what Walter Pater meant when he spoke of the sunless pleasures of weary - to say nothing of dull - people.)

However, Jenni was the first to put a camera into her room. She and her friends, including her boyfriend, Geoffrey, 28 - whom she met through one of her web site viewers - are the stars of this real-life soap opera without music or plot.

Jenni-watchers can see Geoffrey and Jenni smooching and fooling around, but there's no sex on camera. She turns the camera away when they want privacy.

There is quite a bit of Jenni nudity. ``This site is not pornography,'' she says. ``Yes, it contains nudity from time to time. Real life contains nudity.

The complete camera life of Jenni began nearly two years ago when she installed the camera in her dorm room at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania.

``Initially, I bought the camera to update portions of my web page with pictures of myself,'' she says. ``A friend joked that it could be used to do a fish bowl cam, but of a person. The idea fascinated me and I took off with it.''

JenniCAM, she calls it. Originally watched by half a dozen close friends, it has now made her an Internet celebrity. She's even been interviewed by Oprah Winfrey.

And, poor or not, she has set out on a five-week tour of England, the Netherlands, France and Germany.

But not to worry, she's taken a camera along so you can see everything - well, nearly everything - she's doing there. Then she'll be back in her D.C. bedroom, where she leaves the light on at night so viewers can see her sleeping.

``I can sleep with huge amounts of light and noise,'' Jenni says. ``And on practically any surface, so don't worry that it's interrupting my sleep.''

An illumined bed for denizens of the sunless world. In Jenni's Cam-a-lot, that's how conditions are. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

JENNICAM

Jennifer Ringley in the bedroom of her Washington, D.C. apartment,

site of the Jennicam. KEYWORDS: INTERNET

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