Qik, Inc., the leading innovator of mobile, interactive live video streaming services, today announced it has launched its Public Beta program. Now anyone with a compatible Symbian or Windows Mobile Smartphone can go to www.Qik.com, download the Qik service and start live streaming immediately. It's that simple. Qik enables anyone with a supported camera phone to stream live video from their phones, anywhere in the world, to the Web. Qik also announced several new product features, including integration with Facebook.
"We've been working hard to maintain Qik's position as the world's leading mobile streaming service. So, we are thrilled to be able to offer Qik to anyone who wants to stream live video from their phone or participate in the Qik community," said Ramu Sunkara, CEO of Qik. "We are focused on changing the way people communicate with truly live and interactive video. Now anyone anywhere can share their experiences in real time via Qik."
New Features & Enhancements
New features and enhancements to the Qik service include:
* Half-Second to 3 second Latency: Qik now provides the fastest live mobile video streaming available, delivering unprecedented latency of as little as half a second, depending on your network. When we say live, we mean LIVE.
* Groups: Qik enhances the community at Qik.com with the new Groups feature. Now users can share their videos with private, public, and restricted groups of friends, family, and colleagues.
* Self-Service Event Pages: Qik users can now create their own events at www.qik.com. From small family functions to large corporate events, users can invite an unlimited number of guests to view live videos online, and invite others to participate. All of the videos from the event are automatically aggregated to provide a complete overview to share.
* Enhanced, Embeddable Player: Apart from a new look, users can now chat directly from Qik's new embeddable player and view online conversations live. The embeddable player also provides the ability to view thumbnails of other Qik videos and watch them in the player. It also provides an easy way to share and retrieve the video's permalink or embeddable code for sharing throughout the Internet.
Social Network Integrations:
* Qik's New Facebook Application: Now users can stream videos live to their Facebook profiles by installing the Qik application. Once installed, the Facebook app allows Qik users to effortlessly stream live video to their profile, share recorded videos, and alert friends when they are streaming through the Facebook News Feed. The Qik application for Facebook Platform can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=4263621995.
* MySpace integration: Qik users can now go live on MySpace. Just copy/paste your channel embed code to your MySpace profile and stream live Qik video on MySpace.
* Orkut integration: Post your Qiks and go live on Orkut by copying/pasting the embed code straight to your Orkut scrapbook.
More than 60% of videos from Qik are shared by users on other sites. Built as a mobile video streaming platform, Qik has partnerships and has been integrated with:
* Live video streaming providers like Mogulus and Justin.tv
* Blogging and Microblogging services like Twitter, Pownce and Blogger
* Video sharing sites like YouTube and WorldTV
* Live Blogging services like CoverItLive
* Location based services like iPoki
Additional Handset Support
Qik is adding to its list of more than 30 supported cell phones by releasing compatible clients for models from Samsung and Motorola. Qik is also available on Nokia S60 series phones, Samsung BlackJack, and Motorola Q.
"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. "Qik brings a new dimension to enabling the next generation of communication and community building."
Qik is changing communications across the world, bringing current events, entertainment, and personal experiences to wider audiences via live mobile video. Notable events captured on Qik include the Mars landing from mission control, sessions from the World Economic Forum in Davos, and interviews with Bono of U2, Michael Stipe of R.E.M., and Michael Moore. Find additional Qik videos, including those streaming live, here: www.qik.com.
About Qik
Qik, the world's leading mobile live video streaming platform, enables anyone to stream video live from their mobile phone to anywhere in the world. Its innovative, patent-pending technology enables anyone to share their moments live with their friends and family or the entire world.