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I downloaded Qik after hearing Steve Garfield at IMS’09 and getting enthused about streaming video directly from my BlackBerry.  The application is just a tool for streaming video to Qik.com. It accomplishes that goal and for better or worse doesn’t aspire or need to be much more.

If you haven’t heard of Qik, it is a service that uses a mobile application for you to stream video to Qik.com.  From there your video can be aggregated to a variety of other networks such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.  Check out the video below:

The Qik BlackBerry application interface is pretty simple, which makes updating it when you are streaming video easy.  The top field is for the name of the video, the second for a brief description of the video, set the privacy of your video to public or private, mute the audio or not (for videos in a loud crowded area for example or where audio is unnecessary) and then how you want to share your video (brightcove, Twitter, Twelve Seconds, YouTube, Tumblr or Facebook).  Once you’e configured your settings just click the big red button.  This  will open your video camera app and (usually after a short delay) begin recording. Clicking the stop button ends recording.  You have a short period where you can start recording again, if you don’t  then the video saves and uploads to Qik.  That’s it.

The application doesn’t have many additional options.  You can upload video that you previously shot, adjust your profile (a link to your profile on the Qik mobile site) and tweak your settings for video camera integration, location privacy (off, city level, street level, or precise location) and connectivity. 

There’s not much to it, but that keeps the application small and focused.  I could see adding profile information editing to the application or more detailed management of privacy setting, but rather than bulk up the size of the application with little benefit to your everyday experience, I’m glad they reined it in.

The application is simple and easy to use.  If you are planning on using it for something important or at an event I suggest that you practice a few times first so that you get a sense of the delay before recording starts and avoid posting some really short videos or missing that special moment.  I found the streaming very easy to use and reliable, especially for shorter videos.  Longer videos naturally take longer to post and are a memory hog, which can stop you from shooting more video.  If you have a couple short videos cued up to stream that will also kill your functionality.  I found that uploading videos that were shot previously was difficult, but that could have been because of the size of the video.  For on the go citizen news gathering and video sharing Qik is a great addition to your BlackBerry.

Check out my video review of Qik.

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