Fierce 15 Online Video Movers and Shakers: Qik

Qik
Founded: 2007
Location: Redwood City, Calif.
Investors: Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowotz, Marc Benioff, George Garrick, Arjun Gupta
www.qik.com

Qik is all over the place, at least when it comes to press coverage. Qik is used by a wide array of users, called Qikkers, including both professional and citizen journalists. Celeb-blogger Robert Scoble championed the live-video-with-your-cell service at an early date and the service has been adopted by members of Congress, used to cover the 2008 Democratic National Convention, and captured the lighting of the Olympic torch, sessions from the World Economic Forum and the pope's travels abroad.

Bells and whistles on top of the basic cell-phone-video to Internet include integration with Twitter, YouTube, Mogulus, MySpace, Orkut and Justin.tv. Word on the street says Qik will soon add iPhone support.

If there's one thing that keeps Qik management up at night, it is the large number of similar cell-to-stream services gunning for the same space, including Flixwagon, Kyte, and Livecast (formerly Comvu).

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