Open Gardens

About Open Gardens

Open Gardens is published by futuretext

Rated 8/10 on Blogged.com

About The Open Gardens Blog

I (Ajit) founded the blog on May 26, 2005 based on my vision and philosophy of OpenGardens i.e. the philosophical opposite of 'walled gardens' especially as applicable to the mobile data industry.

Today, the OpenGardens blog is one of the few blogs that span both the Web and the Mobile domains.

The blog covers wireless/mobile applications, open networks and mobile web 2.0. My vision behind the OpenGardens blog has been :

The blog is about the Mobile data industry and Digital convergence('Mobile web 2.0')
Analysis is more important than story/controversy. I don't believe that bloggers are true journalists. The blog is not about the latest 'story' but it's more about independent analysis/viewpoint
The OpenGardens blog is broadly about opening up the networks, growing digital usage and digital businesses i.e. we don't advocate closed networks, broadcast media etc
It is about disruptive digital technologies

Founder & Chief Blogger Ajit Jaokar

Ajit Jaokar is the founder of the London based publishing and research company futuretext (www.futuretext.com) focussed on emerging Web and Mobile technologies -including Web 2.0 and Mobile Web 2.0.

His thinking is widely followed in the industry and his blog, the OpenGardensBlog (www.opengardensblog.futuretext.com), which was recently rated a top 20 wireless blog worldwide

In 2009-2010, Ajit was nominated as part of the Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Internet by the world economic forum. He hopes to use this opportunity to further extend the pragmatic viewpoint of the evolution of Telecoms networks in an open ecosystem.

(Note: The Network of Global Agenda Councils plays a significant role in shaping the global agenda by monitoring global issues and elaborating recommendations to address them. Each Council, comprised of 15-20 Members, serves as an advisory board to the Forum and other interested parties, such as governments and international organizations. The Global Agenda Councils also act as the intellectual drivers of the World Economic Forum's Global Redesign Initiative, an unprecedented international, multistakeholder and multimedia dialogue that aims to develop a 21st-century vision of global cooperation. Members of the G20, the UN and other International Organizations have pledged their support for this initiative. )

Ajit is best known for his books Mobile Web 2.0, Social Media Marketing. Two new books ('Open Mobile' and 'Implementing Mobile Web 2.0') are being released in 2009.

His consulting activities include working with companies to define value propositions across the device, network, Web and Social networking stack spanning both technology and strategy. He has worked with a range of commercial and government organizations globally including The European Union, Telecoms Operators, Device manufacturers, social networking companies and security companies in various strategic and visionary roles

His recent talks and forthcoming talks include: CEBIT 2009;MobileWorld Congress(2007, 2008, 2009); Keynote at O Reilly Web20 expo (April 2007);Keynote at Java One; European Parliament – Brussels – (Electronic Internet Foundation); Stanford University's Digital visions program;MIT Sloan;Fraunhofer FOKUS ; University of St. Gallen (Switzerland); Mobile Web Strategies (partner event of CTIA in San Francisco)

Media appearances include BBC – Newsnight – 3phone launch; CNN money; BBC digital planet

Ajit chairs Oxford University's Next generation mobile applications panel and conducts a course on Web 2.0, Social networking, Mobile Web 2.0 and LTE services at Oxford University.

Ajit lives in London, UK, but has three nationalities (British, Indian and New Zealander) and is proud of all three. He is currently doing a PhD on Privacy and Reputation systems at UCL in London. Ajit is a fan of animation especially Tom and Jerry, Tintin and Asterix and likes the music of ZZ Top and other rock bands

You can contact me at ajit.jaokar at futuretext.com

You can follow me on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/AjitJaokar

See a video of my talk at CEBIT in Hannover
(intro in german - presenttion in english)

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October 20, 2008

QIK – Raises the bar for IMS ..

I have been following QIK since I have been interested in video streaming since it is a classic IMS application.

However, QIK raises the bar for IMS i.e if all these features below are possible without optimising the network in any way, then the technology is truly impressive(which is the reason for this blog i.e. I like the service but I think there is something unique in the core technology if it does not need the network to be optimised

Seek comments

a) QIK is a video streaming service. QIK launched into private alpha around Christmas 2007 and went live into public alpha on July 21, 2008. They say that they have a large userbase in more than 100 countries. Splits by country are not available. They have got considerable coverage in the blogosphere in Gigaom and others.

b) Qik’s live video streaming comes with a chat overlay, so that users watching on the web can type in their questions, comments, and feedback as they view – those remarks show up on the producer’s mobile screen. Users (individuals and media houses) have used the chat feature around videos.

c) Qik streams live to the web, so users can also watch archived videos from your cell phone, via Qik’s mobile site or the standard podcasting clients which come on smartphones.

d) QIK have several popular integrations. Users can set up their accounts so that all videos they stream also push directly to theirYouTube account once the stream has terminated and no separate upload is necessary. They can also offer the option of alerting Twitter and Pownce followers when you are live, with a direct link to the livestream within the tweet. (Qik also offers SMS and email notifications.) Mogulus has also been a partner for QIK, as QIK users who have their live, 24/7 online TV channel there can integrate the Qik experience from their mobile phones into their Mogulus channel. They have a similar integration with Justin.tv as well as with Seesmic.

e) There is no optimal length for video. Users can stream live from Qik as long as the handset has the power to keep going. QIK do not throttle usage in any way.

f) QIK has no specific device integration

g) At the moment, QIK’s emphasis is on building the community. There is no business model/revenue model and it is not advertisement funded

h) In QIK, groups are a way to stream and share with specific individuals, or to create micro-communities around common affinities, associations or interests. QIK has groups based on a number of areas like family-exclusive groups to departments within larger organizations using groups to aggregate and experience Qik videos.

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Filed under: Uncategorized — ajit @ 7:50 pm

Comments (1)

1 Comment »

I think you’re right, live video streaming is probably one of the mobile applications with more potential.
I want to take your attention to Solaiemes (http://www.solaiemes.com) a technology start-up company that brought to the market a product called LiveServe (TM) that allows any organization to bring live mobile video to anywhere. It supports live video streaming to the web, autopublishing in blogspot, youtube, etc. Integrates not only mobile video, but webcams and IP cameras.
One nice feature is that it relies on Videoshare standards, so it needs no application in the mobile terminal. Right now, there are several terminals from Nokia supporting that standard out-of-the-box, and the number is growing.
Another nice feature is that it can easily integrate in an IMS environment or it can just work standalone.
We are trying to promote it, not just for fun applications (live videoblogging) but also for corporate applications: videoreporting, live journalist direct to the web, emergencies management, etc

Comment by Saul Labajo — October 22, 2008 @ 12:18 pm