SF is home to the world's oldest webcam. After 25 years, it's being switched off.

The world's oldest continually operating webcam is based in San Francisco. After 25 years running, co-creator Jeff Schwartz says FogCam is "shutting down forever." The world's oldest continually operating webcam is based in San Francisco. After 25 years running, co-creator Jeff Schwartz says FogCam is "shutting down forever." Photo: Courtesy Of FogCam Photo: Courtesy Of FogCam Image 1 of / 43 Caption Close SF is home to the world's oldest webcam. After 25 years, it's being switched off. 1 / 43 Back to Gallery

"As far as I know, they were the first cats live on the Internet," Jeff Schwartz says. He's talking about Petunia and Web, the cats that used to live in his Mission District apartment. Back in 1995, Schwartz came up with the idea to point a webcam at his pets while he was away at school.

He eventually figured out how to connect his webcam to the Internet over the phone lines — it took one picture of his furry companions every minute.

But that was just a side project. A year earlier, Schwartz (known as Webdog) and his cohort Dan Wong (Danno) had already begun running the San Francisco FogCam, named for the shrouded view it offered of the San Francisco State University campus where they were taking computer science classes.

Now, it's the oldest continually operating webcam in the world, and has been running for 25 years. But at the end of August, Schwartz and Wong are pulling the plug.

"We felt it was time to let it go," Schwartz said. "The bottom line is that we no longer have a really good view or place to put the camera. The university tolerates us, but they don't really endorse us and so we have to find secure locations on our own."

He recalls the early days of the FogCam fondly. Schwartz says he was inspired to create it when he was learning how to script. Around the same time, he became intrigued by the first-ever live webcam that actually pre-dated the Internet: the Trojan Room Coffee Pot cam.

It was invented by researchers at the University of Cambridge, hoping to make their afternoon caffeine fix a little more convenient. Many of them worked in different labs on different floors, making it impossible to tell if their trek to the coffee pot would leave them dismayed to find it empty. When they connected the cam to the Internet in 1993, tech enthusiasts around the world grew fascinated.

Usually, the FogCam pointed straight toward Holloway Avenue. But as a tribute to the Trojan Room, they occasionally pointed their own webcam toward the nearby line at Cafe Rosso so people could take a look and know when to get their coffee there.

Schwartz is surprised that 25 years later, people are still looking.

"It was just a little pet project that developed a life of its own," he said. "People liked it so we kept it going."

It was also one of the first websites to experiment with early stages of social media, hosting its own live chat room in combination with its webcam. Schwartz said MTV's Adam Curry reached out to ask how to use a similar model for his own website, and gave them credit.

Curry later went on to craft his own web portal design and hosting company. He also hosted the first ever podcast, Daily Source Code, with help from software developer Dave Winer, one of the inventors of RSS.

"Our webcam is a throwback to the early days of the Internet when anyone could do anything," Schwartz said.

The webcam will be switched off on August 30, but Schwartz says the website itself will be kept up "for sake of posterity." He's uncertain if San Francisco State University will keep the tradition going, but says he's open to the idea.

Amanda Bartlett is an SFGate editorial assistant. Email: amanda.bartlett@sfchronicle.com