You may have never heard of Qik, but it seems to be the logical next step in the citizen journalism movement: live video feeds from mobile phones to the Web. A certain Twittering Congressman uses it already, and today it officially goes public, in beta, naturally.
All a budding, low-budget man-about-town needs is a compatible Symbian or Windows Mobile smartphone and they can stream live videos to Qik’s website, or, with this launch to Facebook, MySpace, or their own site. We anticipate thrilling initial broadcasts like “What’s in my soup?” and “Look, a hot dog,” but just like its predecessors the weblog, the webcam feed, the YouTube video, and the tweet, the possibilities are endless and likely journalistically important one day.
“We are focused on changing the way people communicate with truly live and interactive video,” said Ramu Sunkara, CEO of Qik as vanilla as possible in a statement.
Qik also added some features to the homepage like Groups and “Self-Service Event Pages,” but the now staple of Web 2.0 and citizen media is the embeddable player, which can be placed on a user’s own website.
They’ve also added a Facebook application, and integration with MySpace, Twitter, Pownce, Blogger and YouTube, as well as new compatibility with handsets from Samsung, Motorola, and Nokia.
“The quality and simplicity of Qik’s service is admirable, and chatting with friends while streaming live video is just plain cool. It is so simple that even The Vatican is using it,” said Carla Thompson, Senior Analyst with The Guidewire Group.
Just imagine: One day we’ll have live-via-mobile confession. Check the box if you give permission to upload it to the Vatican website.
