Back in mid-July, I attended SocialMediaCamp here is San Francisco and saw a killer application called Qik. It was demoed by Silicon Valley whiz kid Daniel Brusilovsky, the 15-year old podcaster, blogger, entrepreneur, and soon to be author. Basically, Qik allows you to stream live video from your cell phone.

After finding out my Samsung Blackjack was one of the “chosen” phones that could execute the application currently, I was all over downloading the app to my phone. My intention was to utilize it at last week’s RE Bar Camp and Beer with Bloggers events. Now that I’ve had a chance to review all the content I shot and reflect on the entire experience, I thought I would take a minute to reflect.

First of all, you can see all the videos firsthand at http://qik.com/event/83/re-bar-camp-beer-with-bloggers.  Now I have never claimed to be a videographer and I never will. But the mere fact that I could use my phone to stream an event is beyond cool. People were actually watching the proceedings “live” and were able to take advantage of discussions that they otherwise would have missed.

Now my phone is obviously not a camcorder and as such you can understand that the video it produced was less than stellar. It also drains your battery life so have a back up if you are going to shoot a lot of video. But even with these slight drawbacks, I was still able to share an experience that would have gone unseen until now. Will the folks over at Qik improve on the quality of the streaming process? I have no doubt they will. Will it gain traction with the masses? I really feel it could if people understand the possibilities.

Take the example of a birthday party for a close friend that you cannot attend. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could see everything live without being there physically? You could share in the experience even if extenuating circumstance kept you from attending.

Now because I’m in real estate (real estate technology to be more specific), I was interested in how it could be used in this industry. I recalled a situation in my past real estate brokerage life where an agent I knew sold a house without the customer ever stepping foot in it. They found a house they liked in Menlo Park, CA while searching from their home in Boston, MA. After contacting the listing agent, they arranged for their best friends who lived near the home to go visit it for them. While walking the home with the listing agents, they shot tons of photos and took video of the inside of the home. They packaged it up along with their opinion of the home and an offer was submitted a few days later. It actually closed without the couple ever seeing it with their own eyes.

Now I know this is the exception but wouldn’t that same scenario have been even more dynamic if the couple was seeing the house through a live stream and could gain instant feedback on whether this was the right home for them? Just one of the many uses Qik might satisfy in the real estate world.

I want to give a big thanks to Daniel Brusilovsky and Bhaskar Roy, co-founder of Qik, for reaching out to me via Twitter to see if I needed any help during my test. I think you guys have a great product and I am looking forward to the evolution.

Derek Overbey
Sr. Director of Partnership Strategy
Roost.com
Twitter - @doverbey