fyi for the curious, from Qik’s FAQ:

“What do I need to run Qik?
Currently, we support video streaming on Nokia S60 phones: N71, N73, N75, N76, N77, N80, N91, N92, N93i, N95, E50, E51, E61i, E65, E70m E90 Communicator, 3250, 5500, 5700 Xpress Music, 6110 Navigator, 6120 Classic, 6121 Classic, and 6290. You also need a Data Plan and it is also advisable to have an Unlimited Data Plan from your service provider as video streaming can consume considerable amount of bandwidth.

Currently, registration is only through invitations…“

Where the real changes occur will be in a) privacy per se (as Pxlated hints at), but also ) in our relationships with any major company, and indeed eachother. Celebrities are already learning the hard way that having people with videophones around them is not always good news, but imagine the power that consumers now have?

Companies with shoddy customer service will pretty soon get exposed by people videoing the whole thing surreptitiously, and blogging it. Anyone can be a Frank Ze…

We’ve seen round one of companies getting used to bloggers with all sorts of xxxx-hell sites up and running, but imagine how more believable round two will be, when, instead of moaning about the poor customer service they receive, they’ll be showing video of it…

Steve contributed tremendously to The UpTake’s coast-to-coast live coverage of Super Duper Fat Tuesday. I was live in New Orleans (via Macbook + EVDO), we were also live from a caucus in Minnesota on another N95. I love how incognito you can be with a cell phone camera - very much not intimidating, which is a huge advantage.

This is all building up to our live on-the-ground coverage of the RNC and DNC.

Read all about it here: Newest anchors report by cell phone, with more context + videos on my blog.

It was exciting to be able to interview Duncan Hunter on the street when he was on the way to CNN to announce he was staying in the race.

The night before the Massachusetts Primary, I streamed live from my N95-3 from the Obama rally. Viewers were able to text to me right on the phone and direct my coverage.

http://offonatangent.blogspot.com/2008/02/obama-rally-boston-9408.html

In Boston, on primary day, I made reports of Obama suppoerters in the morning and streamed them live, then at night I was able to broadcast live from the street outside of Fenway Park, with The Uptake, who streamed it live on their Mogulus channel.

http://offonatangent.blogspot.com/2008/02/reporting-for-uptake-massachusetts.html

Then yesterday I broadcast live via Qik at the Anonymous Scientology protest in Boston, and that coverage was rolled into today’s Rocketboom.

http://offonatangent.blogspot.com/2008/02/anonymous-scientology-boston-protest.html

Exciting times!
–Steve

I’m glad Reuters found a decent microphone to use with the N82 as I couldn’t so far. Could you maybe tell what they use and how does it connect to the phone (guess it’s Bluetooth)?

Some, of course, will just be Luddites, but others actually know what they are doing and have already selected the tools that they need. A reporter who is skilled at working the phones and dealing with shy sources isn’t going to gain anything from trying to adopt video, in fact his sources may dry up.

What seems to work the best is for the technologists to invent the gadgets and then allow the market to decide how best to use the devices. I’m sure no one envisioned writing a novel using the text feature on a cell phone, but it’s been done several times in Japan.

I think Jeff’s long association with the visual media sector makes him a bit too gung-ho about the scope of video in news gathering. I claim that stories which don’t have a visual component get slighted in the broadcast world because they don’t fit the format. One sees almost no original investigative reporting on issues such as tax evasion, sweetheart contracting deals or accounting fraud on the networks. No image hook - no coverage.

Promote the new technology, make people aware of its potential and then stand back and let the users figure out how to adopt it. Pushing technology doesn’t have a good history of success.