How to make an Axis network camera appear as a local webcam camera

My two cents are that for the amount of time and resources that you would have to put into accomplishing this, you could have bought a cheap little web cam.

From a quick look at the specs, it seems to have a composite A/V output, like my Canon Ixus, which you could connect to a video capture card (like an old analogue Hauppauge WinTV card). Some software, like Windows Live Messenger, for example, can use that as a webcam source. There also appears to be an HDMI output, which would be easier to connect, but I do not know if any chat clients can use that as a video source. It all depends on what you are trying to do.