Last week we reported that Next2Friends had come out with what appeared to be the first application for the BlackBerry Curve and Pearl handsets to stream live video to the Web, in a similar fashion to early players like Qik, Flixwagon, and Kyte. That’s pretty interesting because till now the BlackBerry has been a bit like the PC guy in those Mac ads - a little dorky, without those cool new web apps.
So far mobile video streaming has been largely relegated to Symbian S60, Windows Mobile and jailbroken iPhones. [Update: It's worth noting that Qik now supports the Motorola Q Series phones, a J2ME platform which is pretty mainstream 5 months ago, as well as several mass market SE and Nokia handsets]. Now the startup has also come up with a streaming video app for the new BlackBerry Bold smartphone which may drag Crackberry users away from their email for once. Video is streamed live to the user’s account which has links and embeds. Next2Friends also supports Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG and Samsung.
However, outside of the Blackberry market, it’s going to be more interesting when they release their application for the Motorola Razr next Monday. The Razr is one if the biggest selling phones in the US, and was a hot seller for a while in Europe. If video streaming hits those lower-end phones then the whole concept will seriously mainstream the activity far quicker than creating an app for high end phones.
Can’t wait!
Thank you for that wonderful insight
Thank you for that equally insightful meta insight.
@ Andrew: LOL!
Great news, just got the BB Bold-will give it a go, its about time somebody brought this functionality out rather than just pushing the i-Phone apps down the BB users throats.
WOW this is great news for all Blackberry users.
My uncle uses Black berry.so great news for him.
Apple, take note! Perhaps it’s time to open up iPhone’s video capabilities … ?
Impressive!!! well done, I have the Razor 2 and have never been able to stream with any of the current providers- cant wait until next week.
With so many players in the real time streaming space, I am getting spoilt for choice, however now I can stream from my new Bold, it does make it easier to choose.
How do these guys make money if the service is free? They are all appear to be attracting big investment $- maybe some consolidation needed in order to really capture the market?
I’m amazed how many new phones Next2Friends are making compatible compared the rivals..
More the better if you ask me!
Finally! Move over Qik! Did anybody check out the other apps they have? I can’t believe these guys have flown under the radar so long.
Wanted to clarify that Qik supports a number of mass market/mainstream phones that got announced last week. This includes Nokia and Sony Ericsson feature phones. For the list of these phones check http://qik.com/blog/244/qik-now-available-on-mass-market-j2me-phones
That’s cool, thanks for the heads up Bhaskar but I’ve got a Curve.
me too CrackBerry, but I do have a Bold on order which I can wait to get a hold off. I have used the Next2Friends service now and it does rock! takes some getting used to- was really crazy seeing me and the gang on online at the same time- really insane! I am not playing around with social- you got that yet? pretty neat app, especially when you ref back to the site.
I think it’s funny that on the link you’ve posted there are people specifically asking for live streaming for their Razrs and BlackBerrys in the comments section. Maybe you should just start directing them to Next2Friends
The reason I did not sign up to QIK was they did not support Motorola- I am pleased somebody does.
I have been waiting for ages for someone to support BB- at last! I was also surprised with the Next2Friends Social app- I downloaded it last night ( still figuring it all out) but I found I could upload pics in real time and also add some text/ a question to it for polling which is neat- the dashboard looks OK but I only have 4 friends on there at the moment , so it looks kinda empty- well done Next2Friends.
Its good to see these guys coming strong,I have used qik and flixwagon and live streaming I think not. Next2friends are real live not like the others good luck guys.
Not before time that somebody added worthwhile social apps to the Blackberry suite. I didn’t even realize that my Blackberry Curve could support video until I downloaded the N2F app. Note - I had to upgrade to the BB v4.5 OS first (but hey it was worth it and it only took a few minutes). This app is real cool. Well done you guys!!!
Just downloaded and installed Live ( had to upgrade my OS) and the stream worked great- finally looks like I can have fun with the BB rather than just email and work stuff
Got it up and running over here too! This is great!
Awesome tool to use on blackberry. I love also online texting on a notbook and you can switch it on and off on your smartphone like blackberry. Check out my website to rec online texting help you to easily create contact list and send text messages to mulitple people. Click on my name and it will go directly to my website.
Did anyone do research on this? Thought not - to describe BB as mainstream is idiotic. S60 far outweigh BB on sales.
I think he’s talking about Razr’s dominance in the US market. Is Razr the future of mobile phones? No, but it is the one phone in the hands of the most Americans.
Worldwide S60 dominates the smartphone market, you’re right. But RIM dominates the US Smartphone market, perhaps another way that he meant “mainstream”. Either way, they’re bringing live streaming to a hugely neglected segment of the US market. I wonder if that was on purpose:)
Also, smartphones only accounted for 11% of total phones sold in Q2 2008. That makes them a pretty small slice of the worldwide pie, perhaps another way that he meant “mainstream”, as in, bringing live streaming to anything but smartphones is a move towards the “mainstream”. Either way, I don’t think calling BB “mainstream” is idiotic, confusing, maybe, but it depends on what you are referring to.
He might of been talking in futuretense as smartphones are on the rise he might know his stats.
“Know which well-known phone outsells the iPhone in the U.S.? I’ll give you a big hint: This “other” phone has been around for some time, and more people use it to access the mobile Web than any other handset around. Give up? Say hello again to Motorola’s Razr phone.”
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10443027/1/motorolas-razr-rules-the-mobile-web.html?puc=googlen&cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
Unfortunately, Next2Friends cannot be trusted until they start paying up money owed to its designers / developers and stop making false promises.
See:
http://www.ndesign-studio.com/blog/updates/public-notice/