While I don’t know who the angel investors are for Flixwagon, I believe their competitor Kyte is funded by Nokia. Interesting for Nokia to work with a competitor of one of their investments!

Symbian Guru has more details on the partnership. Earlier today Flixwagon partnered with Current TV and 12seconds on election night coverage. Flixwagon is one of the products we said would change 2008.

Here’s how it will work… live mobile video will be captured on Flixwagon. Assuming you are a 12seconds user, the first 12 seconds of the Flixwagon video will be sent to your 12seconds account. Current TV will receive a feed of all election-related videos on 12seconds and pick the best ones for broadcast.

It’s interesting to see how many distribution and discovery deals 12seconds is signing. I can only wonder if Seesmic is planning something for election night.

Adam Ostrow is reporting that Current TV is partnering with Digg and Twitter for election night coverage as well.

Today Flixwagon is announcing a white label service for mobile carriers and media organizations to allow both groups to use the Flixwagon mobile broadcasting service under their own branding. Flixwagon notes that by allowing customers of mobile carriers to use their service, increased customer satisfaction and loyalty will result. On the media organization side, the Flixwagon service could power live video for media outlets across the world. This could be very powerful for Flixwagon as more news outlets move to a "you report" method of news gathering.

It would be interesting to see the results of a partnership between Flixwagon and a social networking service — KickApps or Magnify.net. Check out all of our Flixwagon coverage including why we included the mobile service in our "3 apps that will change 2008".

Back in June, Qik announced live iPhone video streaming support for the first generation iPhone. We were first to report on competitor Flixwagon launching live iPhone video streaming support earlier that day.

Here’s Michael at Qik explaining how the new video streaming support works:

Of course there’s also that little issue of iPhone 3G battery life to deal with.

Yesterday Flixwagon announced that they have partnered with MTV and have provided a variety of MTV reporters with mobile devices capable of streaming live to Flixwagon. MTV will broadcast live videos from the Jonas Brothers concerts and fans will be able to watch the videos from home. My guess is that there won’t be any actual live concert performances but we will see. Flixwagon notes, "The videos will give a personal peak behind the scenes of the Jonas Brothers in real time as they travel and get ready for their shows in Jones Beach and Madison Square Garden."

Earlier this year Flixwagon partnered with MTV on the Choose or Lose presidential debates. Flixwagon believes the traffic from this Jonas Brothers/MTV partnership will be their highest to-date.

MTV posted a blog entry asking Jonas Brothers fans for questions – so far the post has 550+ replies.

Flixwagon was one of the three products we noted would change 2008 online. Now if they would just support my Samsung Ace!

Flixwagon has announced

Here is the info on the new live iPhone video broadcasting from the Flixwagon team: Our developers in the Flixwagon lab created the first-ever mobile client that can broadcast live high-quality video from unlocked iPhones to the web. We wanted to experiment with ways to broadcast live video from the iPhone until the official SDK supports video. We’re going to continue working with the iPhone SDK in the future so we can offer this functionality to all users once video becomes a standard iPhone feature.

.There’s also a demo video at http://www.flixwagon.com/watch/38165. Here’s the video as well:

Flixwagon

The Flixwagon app allows you to stream video live online. Their player is the best currently and Flixwagon recently worked with MTV on their Choose or Lose campaign by having reporters all over the country streaming in live video using a mobile handset. Currently Flixwagon works mainly with Nokia handsets but also has some support via a Java client. Flixwagon is also partnering with a variety of conferences to get live streaming from conference attendees. They most recently had many mobile devices at SXSW. (our Flixwagon coverage)

Qik

Qik (pronounced Quick) is probably the most buzzed live video app currently on the market. Videoblogger Robert Scoble and SEO Jason Calacanis are heavy users of the app. If you have a Nokia mobile that is supported, you can stream live video onto the Web using the Qik app. Created videos are also stored for later viewing. Justin.tv is a Qik partner. (our Qik coverage)

Kyte

Why do I like Kyte? Simple, it works with my mobile. I can shoot a video, and then email it into Kyte and it appears in moments. When I upload the same video to YouTube it always gives me an error. While on my device it’s not live, it’s as close to live as possible. There is a live version of the app as well, again for Nokia devices. Kyte can also create shows based on photos as well. Nokia is actually an investor in Kyte. (our Kyte coverage)

JuiceCaster

JuiceCaster allows you to easily upload videos and pictures from your mobile to your JuiceCaster account along with a player for your blog and embed options into Facebook and MySpace. Most of the video I checked out was very, very grainy (a dog looked like a sheep) but the photos look better. JuiceCaster also allows you watch videos on your mobile.

Movino

Movino can help you setup live mobile video streaming onto your blog or Web site. It appears to support 3G and WiFi and a variety of handsets. If you use the Java client, there is no sound. What makes Movino different is that it’s all open source so you can grab the code and edit where needed. Movino was originally developed as a course project at Abo Akademi University. The developers note that the course has completed and future development may be limited.

mywaves

mywaves is a video content site. You can select from thousands of videos and send them directly to your mobile for later viewing. You can setup an auto channel which will send the videos to your mobile when they match your criteria. In their gallery it seems most people want videos sent to them of women in bikinis and lingerie.

GoTV

Want to watch TV on your mobile? GoTV offers about 10 channels of a variety of TV genres. The company is based in California and most of the content is originally produced.

ITookThisOnMyPhone

This service with the very long name lets you create online photo galleries based on the pictures you take on your mobile. Using the ITookThisOnMyPhone app, images are automatically uploaded to the site and after permissions are applied, the images are available for viewing. The service currently works on Blackberry and Windows Mobile.

Phoja

Phoja helps you find answers to your questions using photos. If you take a photo of something that you need help identifying (say a shirt someone is wearing, you want to know the designer), the Phoja community will help identify the product in the photo. They define the service as a “social photo discussion” and there’s a Digg ratings model which pushes popular photos to the frontpage.

Radar

You take a photo, upload it to Radar, it’s sent immediately to your friends and family and they can comment on it and the comments are sent back to you. It looks like photos are sent to your friends computers not their mobile devices. They have also partnered with Big Brother so you can watch video from inside the Big Brother house.

The other update allows you to automatically upload the live videos to YouTube directly. This is a huge timesaver and could help videobloggers gain more traction by leveraging not just the live video but the ability to get in front of the large YouTube audience. What would be a great next step is to allow each user to select the video service they use.

What I’d like to see next is group live video. Allow me to load a panel of everyone broadcasting live from NYC or Chicago or around a topic.

Other players in the live video space include Kyte and Qik. Here is an example of what the FliXee widget would look like on a blog:

Earlier this week Mashable installed a new plugin from Viddler that allows site visitors to comment on articles using video. In 24 hours I’ve watched about 30 video comments.

Why do I believe the combination of blog/cms is stronger than Seesmic? Because it allows the content publisher and his or her audience to interact, each in their own preferred medium. I may prefer to start in text, John wants to reply with video, Mary with audio, Rachel with text. Together we are forming a combined discussion that doesn’t force us into one medium, be it text (currently for most blogs) or video (as Seesmic does).

To make this model perfect, we need three things. Audio recording capabilities, mobile commenting and video/audio transcription. The transcription is important because if users will contribute in their preferred method, they should be able to consume in as many ways as possible. These new input and ouput options could bring real innovation to the blog space which has set relatively still for a couple of years.

And how will the live video services (Qik/Flixwagon) be able to play in this new blog realm? I believe Seesmic is working on live video as well.

Perhaps Seesmic could offer a plugin similar to what Viddler is offering to enhance their current video offering. Viddler has a variety of innovative features but lacks the YouTube buzz and take rate. If they could figure out how to bundle the video commenting plugin into a variety of blog and CMS platforms, it could help elevate and provide a strong distribution model for Viddler.

What’s your take? Are video comments the future? Do you prefer the Seesmic video threading to the traditional blog setup?

With all of the new live video services hitting the airwaves recently, I asked co-founder Daniel Graf about the differences between Kyte and Seesmic, Qik and Flixwagon. Here’s his video response:

More importantly, they’ve integrated Twitter into Flixwagon so you can send video announcements when you are going "live" directly to your Twitter friends. Comes at a perfect time with SXSW this week and Twitter being the hot service. Flixwagon will be on-site showing off their service and I will be using one of their test phones during part of the festival. So watch out, we may just be live as we are speaking! You can also Twitter a message when you are viewing a pre-recorded video. 

Check out our conversation with the founder of Flixwagon from last month.

Part of what will lead to the success is the distribution deals each one has already signed. As Marc Andreessen has said many times, distribution is the key. I am interested in your opinions on the companies listed below – leave your thoughts in the comments.

GoMobo

We took a look at GoMobo last month and also posted their demo video from the NY Tech Meetup. The basic idea with GoMobo is that you can order food from a fast-food joint or restaurant using your mobile for takeway. What this does is save you the time from standing in line. And we predicted 2008 would be the year of the time-saver apps.

Currently the service area is mainly NYC but they have expansion plans in 2008. Their distribution comes from the chains as a point of differentiation which includes Dunkin Donuts, Subway, Papa Johns, etc. Imagine punching into your phone that you want a large Milky Way hot chocolate, corn muffin and a bag of munchkins and having it ready when you arrive.

Think about the time saved from waiting on a line at lunchtime – especially for a person on an hour lunch break. GoMobo estimates the time saved by using their app is over 284 days, I don’t know how they calculated it but even if it’s just 5 minutes each trip, it can add up quickly.

And more importantly, outside of Manhattan, think about the possibilities using mobile in your car – no waiting on a drivethru lane, you just drive directly up to the pickup window at the moment you desire.

The service is free for consumers and GoMobo generates a percentage of the order price. The food establishment doesn’t care because a good percentage of this business will be incremental sales.

Aviary

Aviary is the newest of the apps that we believe will change 2008. The demo of their first app is just amazing. Aviary is a suite of tools targeting the artist community. It’s an actual competitor to Photoshop and Illustrator online. Of the 80-100 demos at the NY Tech Meetup I’ve seen in the last year, this was the first one to receive massive noise and excitement after the demo.

Sure, there are other products like Skitch which are great but appeal to more of the basic graphic needs. I haven’t seen any other product that takes the perspective of what an artist needs and moves it online. The distribution angle for Aviary is to their core group of potential users, the artists. They have tied into their core business, worth1000 to grow excitement and buzz.

The unique angle and game changer for Aviary is in how it deals with copyright and royalties. Since the application is built for artists who make a living at selling their works, it makes sense that the copyright and royalty piece be part of the application. Each piece of the final work is tagged from the source files. Maybe this will help issues like the one that blew up last year with Richter Scales usage of photos. I wouldn’t be surprised if Aviary starts receiving acquisition offers soon.

Flixwagon

Yesterday I met with Flixwagon VP Marketing Sarig Reichert and VP R&D Roy Ginat. Flixwagon is based in Israel and their goal is to make video sharing less cumbersome. If we look at the videos from the NY Tech Meetup, I shoot them, download them, compress them in Windows Movie Maker, upload them and then finally embed them into a post. Flixwagon changes that by shooting live video on your mobile device and having it appear on your blog immediately in real-time. Sarig says that they are empowering a revolution.

You get the full impact of the possibilities when Roy walked outside the coffee shop into Rockfeller Center and began shooting live video while Sarig and I watched it on the laptop. Imagine the parent who was away on business while the child was playing in a soccer championship. The parent could watch the game live from another location. The possibilities are endless.

Their distribution will come from partnerships with major brands. They hosted MTV’s Choose Or Lose special for the Super Tuesday primaries this week in which 51 live streamers were in every state in the nation sending back live video to the MTV Web site and on the TRL tv show.

Soon you will be able to ping Twitter when you are broadcasting and they are working on scheduling and an upload function to YouTube once the live version has completed.

Another company in this space is Qik. Qik has been getting major buzz recently thanks to webulebrity Robert Scoble and his use of the application. I can’t speak to the differences as my phone currently does not handle mobile video, but Sarig says both companies are creating a market and he likes what they are doing. Saris is proud of their video capture quality and the system is built to handle massive traffic.

Once video on mobile devices becomes a standard, Flixwagon is set for success. Photos are so 2005. This is where Yahoo Live should be.