Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Kyte Sails in a Different Direction Than Qik, Flixwagon
There's been a lot of speculation in the blogosphere lately about whether Kyte, Qik,or Flixwagon will finish first in the cell phone video streaming trifecta.
But according to Kyte CEO Daniel Graf, Kyte's broader focus means it's not really in the race with Qik and Flixwagon.
Kyte is focused on a different market, partnering with entertainment companies MTV Europe and KROQ and working with artists from the four major record labels (Universal, Sony, EMI and Warner). It also will support any type of video content, whether online, mobile, live or recorded, while Qik and Flixwagon are primarily concerned with the live cell phone streaming of individual users.
Kyte also lets users embed branded, automatically updating players on their websites and allows fans watching a channel on different sites to chat. So the thousands of fans watching 50 Cent's Kyte channel on Facebook, 50cent.com, and MySpace can form a cross-platform community.
Kyte's big-name deals, broader production focus and better distribution sure make it seem like they're beating Qik and Flixwagon. FastCompany TV founder Robert Scoble thought so; he named Kyte the winner in a much-discussed guest blog at TechCrunch.
Of course, Qik and Flixwagon are still alpha testing and Kyte's Mobile Producer is in private beta, so it's too early to declare the race over. All three sites will undoubtedly make exciting progress in the coming weeks.
--Kelsey Blodget, Associate Producer
http://www.beet.tv/2008/07/theres-been-a-l.html