An Interview with Qik On New Windows Mobile Version

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.

Greg Kumparak had the chance to sit down and chat with Bhaskar Roy, Co-Founder and VP Product Management of Qik, and Jackie Danicki, Director of Product Marketing. The transcript of the phone call follows:

Greg: So – What’s new with Qik?

Bhaskar: Tomorrow morning, we are going to announce support for Windows Mobile as an additional platform. So far, Qik has been on the Symbian S60 platform, and people have been streaming live video from these Nokia S60 phones. In tomorrow’s announcement, we’ll be announcing support for the Samsung Blackjack, and the Motorola Q as the primary devices for Windows Mobile.

With that, we’ll also be announcing a partnership with Microsoft, who we have been working with closely in the releases for these devices and making sure we are optimized for Windows Mobile overall. Microsoft will also be helping us push this through various events, starting at Tech-Ed next week. They have something called “Mobile Smackdown”, which will be one of the Tech-Ed events. There will be close to a thousand attendees for that particular session, and Microsoft folks will be demonstrating Qik.

Greg: It seems like the idea of streaming live would be foreign to some, with a lot of people being used to editing things down before they post them online. How have people been embracing Qik?

Bhaskar: We are actually seeing very good pickup overall, where people are using Qik to do a number of things from citizen journalism, to lifestyle applications, to healthcare, and just sharing things with friends and family. Live adds an element which recorded and edited video can not do, which is impromptu. Whatever I’m doing right now, people can see it, and people can appreciate that.

The best part is that when I’m streaming live I can actually interact with my audience. Whoever is watching that video can chat with me, and that chat shows up on my phone. It creates an engaged interaction with me and my viewers, something that you just can not get with an edited or an on-demand type of video… After you’re done, the stream is automatically archived, and you can download it, edit it, and repost it somewhere else. We’re not taking that capability away from users, but we’re providing the capability to stream it live. If you want to edit it, you’ll have the tools to do that as well.

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