Archive for April, 2009

Facebook Connect updated

Sunday, April 26th, 2009

We have updated our Facebook Connect implementation to provide more flexibility on how videos get uploaded and also take care of those situations where in certain cases the videos were not getting uploaded as Facebook videos (Facebook bug report)

Videos still not getting uploaded?
To workaround the bug, please make the following changes.
1. Go to your Edit Networks page, and make sure that “Allow Qik to Upload videos” is checked. If it is not, try checking it and streaming again. Otherwise, go to step 2.
2. If it is checked, go to your Facebook Application Settings page, scroll to “Qik”, and click “Edit Settings”
3. Click on the “Additional permissions” tab.
4. Deselect the “Access my data even when I’m not using the application.” checkbox and hit “Okay”.
5. Go back to your Edit Networks, refresh the page, then click the “Allow Qik to Upload videos” button again. This should prompt you to allow offline access again. The page may reload a few times. This is expected as it is related to a <bug on Facebook.

Updated settings in the Networks tab
We have updated the settings to enable flexibility for us to trigger uploads to Facebook when you are not online on Facebook.

Qik – the FIRST mobile video service to utilize Facebook Connect for video uploads

Monday, April 20th, 2009

What does that mean for you? It means you can now instantly share your Qik videos on Facebook the way you have been able to share photos for quite some time — directly from your mobile device.

We are super excited to roll out Qik’s Facebook Connect integration — with a big thanks to the team at Facebook for all their help! Here’s how this works.

Share your Qik videos with your friends on Facebook
Qik is the first mobile video service to use Facebook Connect for video uploads. So once you have streamed live using Qik, your videos are now instantly uploaded to your Facebook video collection. You can then proceed to tag, share and comment on the videos from Facebook as you would with any other Facebook photo or video. You even have the option to update your Facebook status and post a one-line story on your wall.

Set up Facebook as a network: You can now set up Facebook as a network by logging into to Qik and then going to Edit Profile > Edit Networks.

When the “Update your status and wall” box is checked, the Facebook status is updated with the Title of the video along with the link to the Qik video. If the Qik video does not have any Title, your Facebook status is not updated. It also posts a one-line story on the wall.

Trigger Facebook video uploads — right from your phone
If you don’t want to upload all your videos to Facebook, you can selectively trigger which ones to upload from your phone through the “Share” menu on your phone. This feature is currently available on all Windows Mobile non-touch smartphones and will be available on all our other supported devices soon.

Post your comments from Qik to Facebook
When you comment on someone else’s recorded Qik video, a story will appear in your newsfeed showing the activity. If you have not yet connected your Facebook account to your Qik profile, but have a valid Facebook session, we will prompt you to connect to Qik when you post a comment. Also, if you and the person you are commenting on are both members of Facebook and you are friends, then the news feed item will be posted on your feed AND your friend’s feed.

Notify your Facebook friends when you follow someone on Qik
When you follow someone on Qik, we will prompt you to post a story to your newsfeed indicating that you have done so.

Auto-login to Qik when logged into Facebook
Once you have connected your Facebook account with your Qik profile, we will automatically log you in to Qik if you have a valid Facebook session. If you were logged in via Facebook, signing out of Qik will also sign you out of Facebook.

Sign-up and Sign-in using Facebook Connect
New users can now sign up for Qik using Facebook Connect. If you’re a new Qik user, once you sign up using Facebook Connect, you will be prompted to select your user URL on Qik (qik.com/<user>) and then go on to select your phone model and download Qik for your phone. SMS-capable devices will receive an SMS with a download and registration link via SMS for seamless association to your Qik account. The login information for the device is also sent as a Facebook message, enabling you to associate your device(s) to Qik.

As usual, we would love to get your feedback. Drop us a line at support@qik.com with comments or questions.

Windows Mobile client updated: Contacts integration, enhanced sharing, upload existing videos, and much more…

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

We’re happy to announce we’ve pushed live a new version of Qik, 0.2.44, for Windows Mobile non-touch smartphones. This can be downloaded from your mobile browser by going to d.qik.com or starting Qik, which will then prompt you to upgrade. Key features included in this release:

Send a live video message to your Contacts:
This exciting feature enables you to send video messages to your contacts directly from the Contacts application on your phone.

To do this, go to Contacts on your phone and then press Menu and select “Send Qik video message”. This will then start Qik, start streaming live and send an SMS to the selected contact with the link to the video. Then once you stop the client, the Qik client exits and returns you back to the Contacts application. The person receiving the SMS can click the link in the SMS to view the video from their browser.

Now – how cool is this?

Qik from Contacts

Enhanced sharing:
Now you can share your videos directly from the phone by going to Options > Share.
- SMS: SMS the link of the video to your friends & family.
- Email: Share the link of the video over Email.
- Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.: Share the video with your community on any social network, blog that you have configured on qik.com.

Upload existing videos:
Have videos that you have taken from your camera application on your phone and have no easy way share them online? Well, now you can not only upload these videos easily using Qik but easily share them easily using our enhanced sharing capabilities. To use this feature simply start Qik and then:
- Press Menu > Upload.
- Go to the folder where the videos are located and select the video(s) you’d like to upload.

Done! Your videos will be uploaded to your profile page on qik.com and shared with the the networks that you have configured to automatically send your Qik videos to.

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Support for more languages:
With this version, we now also support French, Russian, German, Italian, Spanish and Chinese.

Quality improvement:
As usual we continue to push the bar on quality and this release contains a number of quality improvements including the ability to stream at a much higher frame rate even in low light conditions.

Coming soon: Similar capabilities for the touch-enabled Pocket PC phones.

As always, we welcome your feedback. So drop us a line at support@qik.com if you have any questions, comments.

Go mobile, not broke – and win a free trip to Ireland

Monday, April 13th, 2009

We were thrilled to have the Irish Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) Mary Coughlan at Qik HQ today to help us announce a new service. This is a product that comes as a direct result of Qik user requests, so we have to give a big shout out to you guys for leading us down this exciting path! (Full press release is here.)

Today, we announced the launch of Qik Roam, a global roaming service that will let you Qik while you’re traveling abroad at savings of between 60-80% off usual roaming costs. With Qik Roam, Qik guarantees that you will never come home to a bill at all.

Check out the Qik video of Irish Tánaiste Mary Coughlan at Qik HQ, helping Qik CEO Ramu Sunkara and Cubic Telecom CEO Pat Phelan to make the announcement:

Here’s a bonus for you: Everyone who purchases a Qik Roam package in the first month from launch will automatically be entered into a drawing to win a free trip for two to Ireland. Get Qik Roam here to have your chance to win!

Vote for Qik in Webware 100!

Monday, April 6th, 2009

Qik has been nominated yet again for the Webware 100! This is the annual program in which CNET readers select the top Web 2.0 apps and services, and we’re so honored to be nominated again this year.

You can vote for us in the photo/video category. Thanks to the awesome Qik community for nominating us for the second year in a row!