I have seen the future and it's a real-time video streamed from cell phones. Sure, for now it's a little rough - low resolution, often poor lighting, audio that sounds like it was recorded in a steel drum - but even so, it is an undeniably compelling use of video.

What got me excited was Qik, a Web-based service that captures and publishes video streamed from a short list of Nokia cell phones (specifically Nokia S60 phones: N71, N73, N75, N76, N77, N80, N91, N92, N93i, N95, E50, E51, E61i, E65, E70m E90 Communicator, 3250, 5500, 5700 Xpress Music, 6110 Navigator, 6120 Classic, 6121 Classic, and 6290).

Qik points out that it is “advisable to have an Unlimited Data Plan from your service provider as video streaming can consume considerable amount of bandwidth.”

Your videos default to be private and then you can change individual videos to be public as you like. You can also just allow them to default to public, then if you make a mistake with a video that should be private you can change its status at any time.

Qik's terms of service (note that at the time of writing every link to the ToS in their FAQ is broken) are pretty standard, but there's an interesting consequence to their clean, non-commercial service goal (User Submissions section paragraph C) which prohibits “posting advertisements or solicitations of business”; they are going to loose the commercial advantage of supporting professional video bloggers.

There’s also another interesting issue in barring what we might call “salacious” content: It is one of the guaranteed traffic drivers!). Perhaps these restrictions will change with later releases …

Qik is currently in restricted alpha release so you’ll need to apply for an invitation.

So far the visible content on the home page is hardly compelling consisting, as it does, of random clips with no context provided for what they are about. That said, just think of the potential of being able to stream video from anywhere to the Web in quasi-real-time! It’s the future of citizen journalism and reality programming.

I’d put money on the emergence of real-time streaming video bloggers who attract big audiences with syndication and the entry of big media being just around the corner. The future isn’t that far away.

Mark Gibbs is a consultant, author, journalist, columnist and blogger.