A QIK path to journalism's future?

Could live streaming Web sites be the next important addition to new media journalism?

Earlier this afternoon, my roommate Ricky came back from class raving about a new app he downloaded on his Droid phone called QIK Live. He fired up the app, which takes video from the phone and streams it to a live channel on QIK's Web site in real time. My mind was pretty much blown. I frantically searched for the app on my iPhone, and to my delight, it was available for free.


Almost immediately, I signed up for an account and began recording and streaming away. I mostly just took test videos in my room while Ricky was watching from downstairs on my channel (there's about a nine second delay between live and stream). While recording myself, I could see everything Ricky was typing back at me through QIK, and we were essentially having a conversation face-to-text. 


All of a sudden, I noticed I was getting another viewer following my live streams by the handle of "max b." It turns out Max is from Sweden - or so he said. I found that out because he was using the same real-time text feature while I was responding to him on camera. Then I got even more viewers, many of which probably found me through QIK's front page while I was live broadcasting at the time. Powerful stuff.


While QIK and other streaming sites like UStream are good for personal communication, I keep thinking of the journalism possibilities they could present. Reporters could stream live from their phones when breaking news happens, or stream from politicians' speeches or sporting events, etc. I think of it as the video form of Twitter. The conversation aspect is big, too. While there are a lot of kinks to be worked out if something like this were to become a viable option for journalists, it's still really promising. Anyway, what do you guys think?


Oh yeah, and I left J198'ers a message below. Feel free to explore any of the other super awkward test videos I took this afternoon. Don't judge!