It has been over 9 months since we first announced Alpha of Qik and I still get amazed by people’s reaction to Qik and how things shape up so quickly at Qik. Today, what caught my attention was Ashton Kutcher streaming live to BlahGirls.com – his new startup.

It started out last week at TechCrunch50 with Ashton Kutcher getting a taste of Qik and then mentioning Qik in his blogpost on Myspace. And now a week later he has become a Qikker – streaming live to qik.com/blah.

To stay updated on what’s happening with Ashton Kutcher and BlahGirls.com – signup and follow qik.com/blah.

Today, Bhaskar and I were at the Moscone Center in San Francisco to make sure Qik is all set up for Oracle Open World. If you’re not familiar with OOW (I wasn’t), it’s absolutely freaking huge: Oracle takes over the entire Moscone Center, and the city of San Francisco shuts down Howard Street in order to avoid accidents as 40,000 people from around the world descend on SoMa for this event. Indeed, all of downtown – from buses and benches to lamp poles and thousands of people’s shirts – seems to be Oracle branded right now.

We’ve been working with Oracle to bring the Qik experience to Open World. We’ll be in the Inside Innovation Pavilion in Moscone West, showing everyone how to Qik and getting people set up to do so. Meanwhile, plasma screens all around the Moscone Center will be showing live videos from Oracle Open World that dozens of people will be streaming from their cell phones using Qik. We’re also giving away hundreds of dollars worth of iTunes, Starbucks and Jamba Juice gift cards every day just for joining Qik, so do stop by and say hello if you’re one of the tens of thousands who will be there. We’d love to meet you!

Earlier this week actor and comedian Dane Cook visited Boston to talk about his new movie, My Best Friend’s Girl. This event was such a big deal that Boston City Councilor announced it to be the Dane Cook Day. The event was shared live using Qik by the famous video blogger Steve Garfield. Here are a couple of Qiks from the event.

It’s been a ridiculously hectic couple of weeks here at Qik HQ. In addition to all of the new handsets we’ve launched on, as well as the upgrades to our iPhone client, the whole team has been taking part in plenty of cool events. Here’s a rundown.

• TechCrunch50: Qik was the official live mobile streaming partner for the Valley’s hottest start-up battle and confab. With Microsoft – really great partners on our Windows Mobile clients – we also hosted a chill-out lounge at TC50. We brought in a couple of X-Boxes, comfy seating, and the really big hit: a Microsoft Surface. The combination of Qik and the Surface was almost too much for Ashton Kutcher (at TC50 to launch BlahGirls.com), who took to his blog to write:

  The coolest thing I’ve seen so far is Microsoft Surface. Its a coffee table thats like a giant iphone. There’s also this company called Qik that can turn your cell phone into a news truck — you can stream live video from your phone directly to the web.

  Thanks, Ashton! TC50 was a truly fantastic event, three days of non-stop work and fun. Many thanks to Jason, Heather, and Mike for making it such a success.

• CTIA had some overlap with TC50, and we hosted a few close friends for drinks on Thursday night. That also served as a chance to toast Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, who surprised us by doing a demo of Qik during his CTIA keynote. Very cool stuff.

• Last Friday, Rishi and I headed down to LA for the Hollywood Hill‘s Mobile Mobile Summit. I spoke on the mobile media panel with executives from MTV Networks and MySpace, with Wired senior editor Jason Tanz doing a superb job of moderating. Later in the day, I gave the keynote address on the use of mobile technology for social change. Then we all headed to Iron Man and Incredible Hulk executive producer Ari Arad’s house in the Hollywood hills for an amazing party that went into the wee hours. (Yes, we get to call this work!)

  On Saturday, the mobile summit continued, and I was so impressed at how many high caliber people cared enough about this topic to give up part of their weekend to be there. The people we met at this event, and the overall value of what was being discussed, were both of the highest standard. It was a total blast, and a worthwhile one at that.

• Finally, I have to give a big thanks to the legendary Yossi Vardi, who invited me and Rishi to his DLD kick-off lunch in Palo Alto earlier this week. The small crowd was a who’s who in tech, business and entertainment, and there was lots of laughter all around. Amongst the movers and shakers was a friend of a friend of mine, David Silverman, who was the first animator of The Simpsons and also directed The Simpsons Movie (and co-directed Monsters, Inc). David was hilarious, as you might expect, and even recorded an impromptu “ad” for Qik while Rishi Qikked around our lunch table:

It’s been a hectic week or so, but believe it or not, things have not calmed down! There’s lots on the horizon, so watch this space for updates.