Qik launches software for live streaming videos via cellular phones
I’ve wanted to write about Qik, the live, streaming video service for cellular phones (see below) ever since I read about it several days ago.
Qik is in beta and you need to request an invitation. The service is compatible with more than two dozen Nseries and Eseries Nokia phones. I have a few Nseries phones that are compatible with Qik, although I haven’t tried it…yet.
Robert Scoble, blogger and soon-to-be-former vice president of PodTech.net, posted a video via Qik that he shot on his Nokia N95 cellular phone. Robert and Rocky (his producer who films the PodTech “ScobleShow”) exclaim with wonderment about the ability to shoot real-time videos via cellular.
Robert’s view
Robert writes in his blog about Qik:
“It only took a minute to download and install.
“Now there’s a ‘qik’ icon in my applications folder. Click on it on my Nokia N95. A video window pops up, says ‘connected’ and there’s a button called ‘stream.’ I push that and this is the result. Rocky realizes that it truly is live, albeit with a five-second delay.
“Holy s**t. I can stream live video to you now from anywhere at anytime. No longer do I need to wait for Kyte, Seesmic, or other services to upload videos.
“I push that button and the live stream turns to a recorded video. Instantly.
“Freaking amazing. Wait until I hook this sucker up with Twitter.
“Imagine being at a conference, telling people ‘visit my Qik’ and turning this on so they all could watch.
“My world has just changed. Thanks Qik! Watch my page for some more videos coming later today.
“The quality isn’t the best, but it’s watchable and that’s all we really need considering that video is coming to you over a cell phone connection.”
Not unique
This really isn’t the first time it has been possible. Eight months ago I called the concept revolutionary when I wrote about ComVU, that offers free software for shooting and transmitting video live to the Web.
ComVU hasn’t sustained a great deal of buzz, but I suspect companies like Qik should be able to do better at that.
As I’ve written many times, such as in my “Internet Evolution” column entitled “the Serendipitous Broadcaster Revolution,” live video streaming via cellular is an important trend.
There are a lot of new internet TV sites out there. most of them offer a free trial or preview and then they make you pay to sign up, or are cluttered with ads. I think that is ridiculous... so ive done my research and have found a couple of really decent sites. The first one Id like to draw your attention to is (http://www.viewmy.tv) This site has almost 1300 channels from around the globe and counting. it is free to register and they dont ask for stupid details, just your username and email address. It actually streams live channels so you dont have to download any and they have a pretty easy way of finding the channel you want. You can search through genre, country, region or name of the channel. oh and there are no ads either. Check this one out. With over 1300 channels from hundreds of countries, loads of features like channel rating, user recommendations, live chat, profile pages and much much more.
Posted by:will max | December 18, 2007 at 12:12 PM
Watch out for blogTV.com - they too are coming out with a cell phone app!
Aside from that, just watch blogtv.com. Its an amazing new UGC site! It's still in beta phase as well and new and more exciting versions are emerging all the time.
Posted by:Kara-Hannah | December 19, 2007 at 05:09 AM