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Mobile carriers worst nightmare has come true, thanks to Qik
Live video streaming from your mobile phone is probably a mobile carrier worst nightmare simply because the amount of bandwidth video consumes. And leading that nightmare is Qik.
Simply put, Qik takes your mobile phone's built in video camera and transforms it into a webcam that connects to the Qik site where it will host live feeds of your video, as it happens. That's right, people can now watch you make a fool of yourself anywhere you go.
We were able to test the Qik service on our 3G connected Windows Mobile phone. The installation was quick and only required a few SMS messages be sent back and forth to authorize our account. Once configured just launch the application and your video will automatically appear on the Qik website. Video quality is acceptable and we only experienced slight delays due in part to our mobile connection and location.
Once you end your transmission the live video is then archived to the site for later viewing. Of course like any good site, they offer 2 different privacy settings for your feeds, public and private. At least this way not everyone in the world can see that you haven't cleaned up your room.
Currently in alpha, Qik supports a handful of Windows Mobile and Symbian phones with iPhone testing starting soon. We hope that future updates to the service will also include the ability to adjust video size and image quality. They do recommend an unlimited data plan and in the few days that we used the service we would also recommend it as well.
Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsToddJul 7th 2008 10:01AM
Qik has to be the most underrated technology out there right now, and as soon as they add support for more phones its really gonna take off.
BTW, Qik is also dinosaur news media's worst nightmare too. I suspect there will be a nasty dino-media/carrier alliance to make Android/Qik illegal. I can totally hear paid lobbyist puppeteering congressmen with the whole "Android and Qik are a threat to national security!!!! They must be stopped!..." disinformation campaign.
EthanJul 7th 2008 10:10AM
Yeah, but surely the data charges make it a carrier's dream?
yoJul 7th 2008 10:43AM
Not when you have an Unlimited Data plan. $15 a month certainly isn't going to break the bank.
JamesJul 7th 2008 11:56AM
My assumption is that if this ever catches on (e.g. more than ~1% of the Unlimited Plan user base), they'll block the port that's being used, and "discover" subclause 487.2(a)(3) in your contract states that Unlimited actually means whatever the hell they want it to mean. That's what the cable companies are doing already.
chrisarozJul 7th 2008 11:51AM
ComVu has been doing this for YEARS. I used it when my 2nd child was born to broadcast (not the birth) live video of the new baby to all our friends and family. Not sure which is better, but it sounds like Qik is more consumer focused, where ComVu was more broadcaster focused.
Jackie Danicki (Qik)Jul 7th 2008 2:34PM
Interesting post! Just a few clarifications:
1) Qik currently supports more than 30 handsets, with more being added as quickly as we can.
2) Our iPhone client has been in users' hands for several weeks now. It's an invite-only alpha, but we've already pushed out multiple builds and people seem to love it!
3) In addition to private and public modes, you can also choose to share your videos with a select group of people.
As far as comparing Qik to other offerings go, it's not really a fair one. Others don't have the live chat element that is exclusive to Qik, do not have an embeddable Flash player as Qik does, do not let you integrate other distribution methods (YouTube, Mogulus, Justin.tv, Seesmic, et al), and there are vast differences in quality. For example, Qik latency is down to 1 second, unheard of until...well, this weekend. :-)
Several broadcasters are loving Qik, and our team works closely with them to make sure our technology works as well for them as it does for our individual, non-commercial users. If we play this right, all sorts of business models are going to explode. ;-)
NgageJul 8th 2008 7:25AM
Well I found www.next2friends.com and it seems similar to Qik but Qiker “No pun intended”. Maybe one to watch out for?