KEN'S KORNER -AUGUST 2008
TRUCKERS FIND FUN ONLINE
BY AUTHOR, EDUCATOR & DRIVER KEN SKAGGS
If you were to ask me two years ago, I would have said not too many truckers were on the Internet. At that time, you’d see maybe one guy sitting in the truck stop looking at a laptop. And, most likely, he was watching a movie. But man has that changed. Now, everywhere you go there are truckers on laptops, tapping away on their keyboards, talking on headsets, smiling into their web cams, looking for loads, looking for jobs, building websites, chatting, writing about their travels, documenting their lives with words, pictures, sound and video. A lot has changed in a very short amount of time. Because of this, I thought it would be a good time to talk about some of the fun things that are available to truckers who are online.
There are a bunch of truckers out there streaming live video feeds on the internet from cameras mounted in their truck. Most of them mount a camera behind them, facing out the windshield, so you can see everything they see as they drive. There are even a few that you can chat with while they drive (don’t ask me how they do that - hopefully they have an assistant working the keyboard). Most are silent, but at least two I found had sound, including www.livetruckcam.net. On this site, you can hear everything from the truck running to the radio playing.
Another one I saw was www.truckbuddy.camstreams.com. This guy has a very elaborate setup and explains everything on his web page. If you are wondering how to do it, this is a great place to start reading about it. His camera follows moving objects, too. It’s pretty cool. The website he uses (www.camstreams.com) is a free web cam hosting site that has a chat feature that automatically comes on. You don’t have to download any software or even register. If I were to put a web cam in my truck, which I have been thinking about, I would use this site.
So, for those of you who can’t get enough trucking action, after you park yours you can go online and watch someone else drive theirs. I’m sure that many of you out there are thinking, “When I get out of my truck, that’s the last thing I’d want to do.” But, for someone who wants to see what it’s like to drive a big rig, it’s pretty cool. Of course, it’s mostly boring, especially when the truck is parked, just sitting there for hours looking at a truck stop. But when he’s driving, you see everything. And he’s an owner-operator that goes everywhere, so you just never know where he is. I think that’s the fun of it - wondering where he is today. It’s a one-man reality show.
Some truckers are finding fame and fortune on the internet. They’re getting famous online, with their webcasts, radio shows, live truck cams, personal and instructional videos, and some are becoming real writers with all the stories of their day-to-day life they write and post on their websites. Some are even making money. There are basically two ways to make money online, and truckers are all over both of them. They can either sell ad space (banners) on their website (when they have enough traffic to justify them), or they can sell an actual product that they made like a book, a video and/or a podcast.
There are dozens of truckers who record their own radio shows, mostly talk shows, which they allow people to download and listen to in either MP3 format or podcast. MP3’s, of course, can be downloaded and listened to with any computer. For those that don’t know what a podcast is, they were originally designed as a special program for use with an Apple I-Pod (a mobile handheld device which plays audio files). Today, many radio shows call their downloadable files podcasts, but they are actually just MP3 files. A podcast has come to mean any recording of a complete radio show or discussion. It’s kind of like calling a generic cola a Coke.
Trucker Tom is probably the most popular one. He’s all over the Internet with podcasts, blogs and tons of pictures and videos. I’ve heard a few radio shows talk about him and I wouldn’t be surprised if he winds up with his own radio show one day. You can check out Trucker Tom at www.truckerphoto.com. He has a very popular blog, where he writes articles about everything in life, from trucking and travel, to news and politics. I found him to be very informed, intelligent and genuinely entertaining. He also has links to several other truckers, who, like him, record podcasts and take some pretty cool pictures and videos.
There are also a lot of truckers on www.youtube.com. Youtube is a great website to post videos for free. You can find a lot of funny and informative stuff on there, from incognito truck stop activity to truck accidents, and everything in between. You just never know what you’ll find on this website. Youtube also has a blog feature that allows you to register and then post comments about videos or just butt into a conversation and argue with people.
If you are looking for some trucking (or non-trucking) friends, try www.myspace.com. This is a free social website for people to meet and keep in touch. There are hundreds of truckers on myspace, maybe thousands. Currently, they have over 238,000,000 registered users. That’s almost the entire population of the United States. Of course, many of them are in other countries, but this is definitely fertile ground for meeting people and making new friends with similar interests.
The Internet always was a great place to find information and it’s only getting better. Just about any question you can think of can be answered in just a few minutes online, including anything to do with trucking. And now, with video everywhere, truckers are really getting into it. Almost anything you seek, you will find. Truckers are also making videos of the everyday things they do, like pre-trip inspections, trailer hooking, securing loads, proper backing, safe driving and even CDL road tests. Truckers helping truckers - you’ve got to love that.
If you don’t have a laptop yet, get one. It’s a lot of fun. It beats sitting around watching TV, which is so predictable. But online, you just never know what you’ll find. And now, with so many truckers on there, you’re bound to make a friend or two. You can start with me. You can find me at www.bigcitydriver.com - I’ll see you there!