The Qik And The Live

Qik (pronounced "quick"), is a Web site, a service and a company in Redwood City, Calif. When it bounced on the scene late last year, it quickly became a cause celebre among top tech and vanity bloggers. So what's the big deal?

Qik's service remains free. It costs nothing to sign up or to use the Qik service to stream live video. However, it does cost money to find a cell phone and data plan that you'll need to access and use the Qik service—making it much more expensive to use than a standard cell phone with a pay-as-you-go data plan. But what the Test Center found is that both the service and its underlying technology provide the potential for mind-boggling value in a commercial application. Live, wireless streaming video from just about anywhere can provide extra competitive value to businesses. Here's how it works: The company allows for fast sign-up and deployment on a per-phone basis. Simply type in the number of the smartphone you'll be using, and it will send you an SMS message with a link where the smartphone can download the Qik software application. Once installed, it's as simple as clicking on the application, clicking on a "stream video" button and pointing the video lens. Based on our test in the lab, it worked, although the video and audio were a little choppy and the video stream fell into a delay mode after about a minute of streaming. Overall, Qik is too early to recommend yet for business purposes, but it's not too early to start becoming familiar with what the service offers and its potential uses.