Of the many things that the 'Net has transformed, the world of broadcasting is the one most profoundly affected. Driven by the rise of blogging, the migration of television to the Internet, and the explosion of YouTube, the control of what constitutes broadcasting has moved from the tender care of big media to the egalitarian chaos of the public.

Perhaps the most powerful influence is that of user-driven video. While YouTube has had an enormous impact the next iteration of this market, a rethink that adheres more closely to a traditional albeit micro- or even nano-scale broadcasting model, may be the next big leveler in democratizing who gets to have a voice.

Today’s focus, Stickam, first launched in 2006 is a leading example of this new broadcasting format.

Stickam, which is free, provides both live and pre-recorded delivery of videos, photos, and slideshows and provides up to 2GB of storage and unlimited bandwidth. For the techies in our audience, Stickam is Flash-based and provides players in sizes ranging from 160x160 to 820x490.

In its live mode Stickam allows up to 6 people to video chat simultaneously. Stickam provides a “badge” widget so you can embed your Stickam video player on your Web site of a blog, and there’s support for uploading pictures and videos from cell phone cameras. Stickam also provides a set of social networking features (friends, invites, ratings, etc.).

Stickam is very easy to use and you can create video with the Stickam interface or upload pre-recorded content (AVI, MOV, WMV, 3GP, and MPEG are supported for video and MP3 and WAV for audio content). Stickam provides no video editing facilities because it is focused on delivery features that include IM-style chat in the player interface and audience control.

Curiously, when you set up an account and want to add a profile photo you have to use a JPEG image – no other formats are supported. I know that seems like a small thing to pick on, but to me it seems like a huge oversight – I’ve used a GIF image I have had available for years on scores of sites and this is the first site that supports only JPEGs.

This deficiency leads me to Gibbs’ WebApps Rule #1,694: If there are multiple data formats for anything you want users to do then you must support them all if you want people to cooperate. Because I’m short of time, Stickam’s eschewing of GIF files means that I’ll upload my photo later when I can be bothered to transcode it. Later may mean never which is, I’d guess, not what Stickam would prefer.

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