If you use short-form Internet messaging service Twitter a lot, you probably follow blogger Robert Scoble. If you follow Robert Scoble, you’ve probably read the following at least a few hundred times: “I’m streaming live right now, come chat! http://qik.com/video/xxxx.”
Qik is a live video streaming service that allows you to use your cellphone to send video to the Internet where anyone can watch it and chat with you about it in near real-time (there is usually a short delay due to mobile connection). Other prominent people in the tech world such as Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis and Digg founder Kevin Rose, have begun using Qik recently as well, further expanding the service’s buzz-worthiness.
Qik’s parent, Visivo Communications has received a new $3 million series B round from investor MBQI. It seems likely that the Foster City-based company will use the money to expand the Qik service and help it grow beyond the insider tech crowd.
Unfortunately, to use Qik you need an expensive mobile phone such as the Nokia n95 and a hefty mobile broadband plan to handle the bandwidth required for streaming. We’ve previously written about the service here, as well as competitors Flixwagon (our coverage) and UStream.TV (our coverage). Yahoo also recently entered into the live video streaming business with Yahoo Live (our coverage), however they have no option to stream from mobile devices currently.
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The aforementioned Scoble also notes that Qik added RSS feeds to the site today to keep up with his torrid rate of video posting.
We’ve contacted the company but have yet to hear back. We’ll update the story when we know more.
update: NewTeeVee has confirmed our report that the funding is for Qik and talked with the company about its plans for the money.
