Ok… When I was at BarCampLA-5 one of the attendees introduced me to Qik. Still in alpha and already loaded with tons of awesome, but before I get into exactly how rad it is… allow me to poach from their FAQ about what it is:

What is Qik?
Qik is a little piece of software that enables you to stream videos directly from your phone to the Web. Use it to stream engaging videos to your friends in Facebook, Twitter, etc. or as your camcorder to capture entertaining and special moments.

Now, first off - this application, though “little” is far from little. I think it’s the damn near most awesome thing EVAR for cell phones. Multi-touch is novel… Live streaming video is awesome, useful, a tool for blog, a utility for life-catching, and it goes beyond just a camcorder. While you’re streaming? People can watch on your profile (mine) and chat with you, and all over the air. No WiFi required, but it is optional. You can title and describe prior to recording, and also set up your account to upload to a number of services:

1. Twitter: “I’m streaming come watch… <link>”
2. Seesmic
3. Mogulus
4. Blogger
5. Mobuzz.tv
6. Justin.tv
7. YouTube
8. Pownce *new*

I just found out they allow for Pownce, how neat. Right here, live, during this post… and the setup was a charm, only took me “…” to do it. Not bad.

Unfortunately, this is for Nokia S60 phones ONLY, here’s their list:

N71, N73, N75, N76, N77, N80, N82, N91, N92, N93i, N95, E50, E51, E61i, E65, E70m E90 Communicator, 3250, 5500, 5700 Xpress Music, 6110 Navigator, 6120 Classic, 6121 Classic, and 6290

But in due time there will be more support for other handsets I’m sure. They’re actively working on the project right now, and making it VERY well known - especially by flooding SXSW with Qik enabled Nokias for live feed from the conference.

Mine will be at the Web 2.0 Expo at the end of April, that’s for sure. Until then, I’ll keep randomly doing whatever it is I do on the web with this thing… Pretty much take up bandwidth.

If you have a Java enabled phone and want to broadcast video over WiFi or 3G? Well… Movino is a little bit of an answer you may want to explore. I’ve been using Qik for the Nokia N95 for about six weeks, and it’s awesome, but it’s only for S60 handsets… leaving those of you with video capabilities on your cells without the coolness of an N95? No fair.

I installed this on my phone in about 2 seconds, after checking the FAQ and a little happy go clicky trial and error for a few things. SourceForge… I don’t really like the site, but we have to use it from time to time. Anyhow, this app is pretty buff. As stated in their FAQ, it was developed as a class project, looks like. Doesn’t really say much for support of the project, but this app is pretty striaght forward. It doesn’t attach to a sign-on service, like Qik (which I’ll do a write up for), but it does allow you to have some streamy goodness if you have your own stuff… web server, etc.

The site has tons of great documentation, and a great philosophy about their code… you know… Open Source? So you can check out their stuff, and hey, write stuff to it, make it more awesome, less awesome, etc. You kids with your Open Source goodies know the drill. Anyhow, mix this with the Twitter API on your web server, and you have yourself you own mini-Qik… Give or take.

How about one of you kiddies with a J2RE (Java) enabled phone give this thing a whirl, huh? Lemme know how it works for you - if it does.

Microsoft, the mogul they are, have set up a “Documents Anywhere” solution that allows you to store hundreds of Office documents, edit them, save them, hold previous versions, and share them with others - all from their handy dandy web interface. From what I can tell, OfficeLive is simply “open” SharePoint working with your Windows Live login information.

Of course this is meant to compete with Google Docs, but in my humble opinion - this “solution” is merely an access portal for files that still requires the user to have an office suite installed on the their desktop. That said, this solution, though useful - is ultimately pointless. On the flip side, there is Office Live for Small Businesses. The features are pretty buff, and I can see better use here - but that’s a no brainer, considering Microsoft does have a tendency to cater to their main market share more than simply “consumers”… oh, their market share is mostly business, just in case you had no idea who Microsoft (MSFT) is.

Features (from OfficeLive.com)

• Web Site
  Everything you need to create a professional online presence, including free Web hosting, easy-to-use site design tools, site traffic reports, and more
• Custom Domain and Business E-Mail
  A custom domain and up to 100 business e-mail accounts—free for the first year
• Contact Manager
  Manage sales opportunities, contact information, and track every interaction with customers
• Document manager
  Store and share company documents in one central place for easy access and version control
• Workspaces
  Collaborate and share information with customers, partners, or employees with password-protected online workspaces
• Project Manager
  Plan projects, assign tasks, and monitor your progress
• Resources, advice, and more
  Around-the-clock support, FAQs, community message boards, and an online Resource Center for advice and how-to articles

So, small businesses or even start-ups that can manage to afford the licenses for MSFT products should be able to find this most useful, and could leverage these things for maximum flexability and organization of their stuff.

It is a good effort, to provide a consumer end solution to the day-to-day consumer that is used to MSFT products, and is still using e-mail to store and transport documents, but for the savvy user - there are more valuable file storing utilities out there already, and Google Docs is one of those apps - especially if you don’t have Office installed on your workstation.