Live video from your bedroom

Written on December 17, 2007 – 9:55 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Qik

The next revolution in mobile video is here! Qik makes it possible to broadcast live from your Nokia phone. Robert Scoble discovered this new way of video sharing and is raving about it on his blog: “Holy s**t. I can stream live video to you now from anywhere at anytime.” This is how he drives his car.

Besides filming during driving, Qik makes a lot of other interesting activities possible. Just imagine the influence this will have on citizen journalism. Instead of endlessly uploading the video, the new reporters can broadcast their news right-a-way.

And what will this mean for YouTube? If the larger audience will pick up this service, chances are high that almost all video content from camera phones will be published on Qik instead of YouTube.

Since I don’t own the right phone I haven’t been able to test it yet. I hereby challenge you, the Next Web visitor, to come up with an interesting live stream in the comments.

I hope you like that post!

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mobile, qik, scoble, streaming, Video embed

About the author: Ernst-Jan is a blogger and journalist, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five.

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16 comments/trackbacks to “Live video from your bedroom”

Jan 13, 2008: Streaming video instead or 140 characters?
[...] the previously discussed Qik, social network Next2Friends, Kyte and Seesmic do (or will) offer. People don’t have the [...]
Mar 13, 2008: Bambuser: stream video from your phone, even if it’s not a Nokia
[...] the beginning of December I celebrated ‘a revolution in mobile video‘. I was talking about Qik.com. The popular service that allows you to stream live from your [...]
Jun 28, 2008: iPhone has everything going for its success, even porn
[...] owe a huge part of their success to sex. As Boris once said in the comments on this blog: “Porn is usually the killer app“. He was referring to Qik, the mobile video streaming service that has a lot of porn-related [...]

By David Petherick on Dec 18, 2007 | Reply

Darn! I have the Nokia E61 - probably the only phone they make without a camera.

Time for an upgrade…
By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Dec 18, 2007 | Reply

You DO know where all those Polaroid camera’s were used for right? The killer app is usually Porn. I remember a scene from American Pie (not that I actually watched that movie :-) where they demonstrate this…
By Qikker on Dec 18, 2007 | Reply

good point, but that’s what Qik wants to avoid as much as possible. So, on top of regular user-assisted reporting, we’ll warn the users of specific phones who are trying to misuse the service, and may completely blacklist their phone from using Qik, if bad behaviour persists.
By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Dec 18, 2007 | Reply

@Qikker: That is too bad. I hope you won’t be TOO strict with blacklisting people. Sex sells…
By Patrick de Laive on Dec 18, 2007 | Reply

@Boris :) Well I can imagine, if you’re based in the US you want to be careful with that.
Maybe a separate version for US and European content would do the trick :)
By Ørv on Dec 18, 2007 | Reply

Darn!

I’m still on a SE mobile device. ): E90 where are you now ):

This is a THE next revolution in mobile reporting and this will probably not work on my UIQ 3 device..
By Qikker on Dec 18, 2007 | Reply

“Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come! If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell”

http://www.biblegateway.com/pa.....version=31

Applicable world-wide. No tricks possible.
By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Dec 18, 2007 | Reply

Nice quote Qikker. Good to hear you are following the bible. More blood, sex, incest and violence in there than most hollywood productions:

“Last night I lay with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.”

I guess we will see footage of Lot sleeping with his daughters and Onan spilling his semen on the ground? Always wondered how that looked.

But seriously; I do respect the fact that you don’t want to show X-Rated content on Qik. but using the bible to defend that seems a bit, well, odd.
By Qikker on Dec 19, 2007 | Reply

wait a sec - what Bible describes people doing does not mean it approves it. All these examples are described for us to be aware, that if we live like those ppl lived (in sin), we’ll end up as bad as they did.

Specifically, Lot’s sons later on mentioned as enemies of God (Ps. 83) - so, slowly this family drafted away from God.

using Bible makes sense to me cause it is the only reliable source explaining how to discern what is sin and what is not.

Communists in SU had very good morale. Very strict. But there’s was no God & Bible foundation underneath. So, when communism collapsed, lots of folk went crazy doing kind of promiscuity, which was earlier prohibited to them. Secularism/liberalism/humanism do not have that foundation either. And just like communists, they reject God and Bible - I lived thru it, I don’t want that deception any more.
By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on Dec 19, 2007 | Reply

Thanks Qikker for making that clear. Good luck with your business.
By erwin blom on Dec 19, 2007 | Reply

Seems like a nice service, but presenting as a You Tube killer seems a bit far fetched ;-) Live video has a value, on video has a different value. The two are different things.
By Corne on Dec 21, 2007 | Reply

Today I tested Qik with my Nokia N95.
Dutch blogpost you can find on my weblog. On which I also embeded the Qik video.
By John Nota on Jan 15, 2008 | Reply

To bad only Nokia is supported. I wonder what they can achive if more brands are added to the service