Tomorrow Qik, the popular webcasting service that streams video from your phone, will announce support for Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform. Actual support for phones will be rolled out in the coming months. To get things started, the site has launched an invite-only alpha for the Motorola Q and Samsung BlackJack. We’ve got invites for the first 50 TechCrunch readers who email techcrunch@qik.com.
Qik is an ultra-simple video broadcasting system that uses a cell phone’s camera to record video, which is streamed live to Qik’s servers. Viewers can watch the live streams from embedded players or from Qik’s site, and all content is archived for future reference. The service has turned into an essential tool for many people, even some unlikely ones – Robert Scoble, who declared that he was “only using HD camcorders” back in 2006 recently has become an an avid (and decidedly non-HD) Qik user: He recently used the service for an important interview with Twitter’s founders, defending himself by saying that he would have never been able to get the interview in the first place had he been dragging around his HD camcorder.
Up until now Qik has only been available on Nokia smartphones based on the S60 platform. Qik says that they plan to gradually introduce support for all Windows Mobile phones (presumably with a camera and high speed data plans), though they haven’t offered a timeline for this. The Windows Mobile platform represents an absolutely massive increase in the potential userbase for Qik – Microsoft expects to sell 20 million licenses in 2008 alone.
We’ve grown to love Qik at TechCrunch: the service is ridiculously easy to use, and quality is usually surprisingly good for video that has been streamed over a cellular network. We used the service earlier today to live-stream an interview with Gmail project manager Todd Jackson, and earlier this month we used it to stream Bill Gates’s keynote at Advance08.
Qik has a number of competitors in this space, including Flixwagon and Kyte.
Greg Kumparak from MobileCrunch had a chance to sit down with Qik to talk about the partnership – Check out MobileCrunch for the interview transcript.
Update: Mike just interviewed Qik’s co-founder Bhaskar Roy using the service. Check out the embedded Qik video to get a sneak peek at the software running on a Samsung BlackJack.
very cool to see the folks at Qik innovate on the windows mobile platform. I’m an avid user of my Nokia N95 and love the service.
Personally I think service like Qik have a LONG way to go…
Quality is not near enough to keep my attention…
Yes, please dedicate the second paragraph to Scoble’s love of Quik and the fourth and final paragraph to TechCrunch’s love of Quik because, really, we had no idea.
qik is my favorite start up out there right now, I REALLY hope I get the invite that I just sent out
Your Kyte link actually links to Flixwagon, just FYI.
The most annoying thing about Qik is how it’s always spewing “I’m streaming live from Qik right now…” all over everybody’s twitter feeds.
Fantastic, now if only iPhone was supported.
I hope Qik knows they don’t matter until they support the iPhone. Who the hell uses Windows Mobile AND would use this service anyway?
ALL ABOARD THE FAILPLATFORM
Thanks for the heads up Ryan.
@Don
I’ve got my fingers crossed that we’ll be seeing a similar announcement at WWDC…
Funny how they are rolling it out in the “coming months”?!?
Aren’t all other companies rolling it out in the coming months also?
Please make the announcement next time when you actually have something to show.
@Abby
They do. Watch the video.
Tons of people w/WM that would use this. In fact I’d say more WM than iphone users. Especially because last I checked the iphone doesn’t support video out of the box.
And FAIL* is gay.
Qik is definately a startup to watch. I think they have a great product which is so simple and elegant – and this announcement is a step in the right direction.
Had a great meeting this week with Bhaskar at Qik, and these guys are going to be big players in the mobile video market. Great job guys keep it rolling!
Qik is one of my favorite software! Bhaskar Roy and his group are also very helpful when it comes to support. I’m excited to hear that they will be supporting more phones so everyone can join in on the fun!
Today I interviewed AT&T’s CTO on Qik: http://qik.com/video/94944 — love the service, but watch Kyte.tv to come on strong too.
JasonTT: I think you guys who complain about the quality are totally nuts. Look at today’s video with AT&T’s CTO. It’s very high quality.
You mention Qik has a number of competitors in this space, including Flixwagon and Kyte.
however you fail to mention Bambuser (perhaps because it has a European base in Sweden).
I have found QiK and Bambuser to be the only sites that stream live video successfully without delay.
I am using both for professional live video streaming of conference events. Both companies have facilities for unique conference sites (or tagging) as well as the normal lifestreaming.
Amanda Cogdon has also been using Bambuser out and about, so Bambuser deservedly should have a mention.
Also Bambuser provides live GPS on google maps of your broadcasting position
Great to see this news from Bhaskar and the team. Qik has brought a whole new dimension to our users – the ability to stream live from anywhere is truly awesome. To see that brought to a wider range of phones is simply terrific.
Another interesting competitor is Floobs ( http://www.floobs.com/ ), a Finnish mobile streaming service which is built on Java, so will work on just about any phone. Nope, not involved with the service personally, but they’re nice guys and the Java aspect has potential.
For windows mobile there’s also Pocket Caster from ComVu http://www.comvu.com/
Good points, but make it more generally
Great piece. Featured on popfail.
You have got to be joking about the user base increase from Window Mobile support. Eveyone knows that S60 (Symbian) owns the smartphone market. Both Microsoft and Apple are just blips in the market worldwide.