Foster City, Calif.-based Qik announced today that it's opening up its mobile-broadcasting service, which lets people stream live from their phone to the Web, from an invitation-only service to a public beta. The company is also announcing a number of new features that will become live this month. Among a number of new user permission-based features, like being able to create groups and events, the company announced a slew of new distribution partners and more support for handsets and networks. For instance, Qik has created a Facebook app that will let people chat directly from the site. There are also MySpace and Orkut features that let you embed the code for your channel or scrapbook to post video to your profiles. It is now also supporting more Symbian and Windows Mobile phones from all the major U.S. wireless carriers. The list can be found here. Comparable companies include Kyte and Flixwagon, but Qik has gotten quite a lot of attention from alpha users like Robert Scoble and TechCrunch, which were participating in the private trial. TechCrunch writes today: "We've been using Qik for the last few months, and for the most part we've been pleased with the video quality and the convenience that comes from having a portable video camera that can stream directly to the web (although there have been some troubles with upload speeds that are largely the fault of network carriers)."
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