If you’ve owned a smartphone at any point in the past few years, you’ve likely heard of Qik. This company was the first to offer live streaming video from the iPhone – and several Android devices. I remember how cool it was to be able to stream live video to a virtually unlimited number of live viewers using nothing but a jailbroken iPhone 3G in the early days of the Qik service.

Qik has come a long way since then, and Skype has taken notice of it. Earlier Today, Skype announced that they have purchased their “competetor” Qik. I don’t think anybody saw this one coming, but it could pay off for Skype depending on what exactly they plan to do with it.

Skype’s new CEO, Tony Bates, wouldn’t discuss the purchase price or any future plans for their integration. However, Bates did say that Skype is planning to “work closely with Qik.” As of now, we have no idea what this means. We’re uncertain of how – or when – Skype will integrate Qik into their service and brand.

Bates also declined to discuss the failed video-chat tablet demo that was almost shown at the Nvidia press conference yesterday. Skype has made several other announcements which include: Paid group calls with up to 10 users per call, Skype on TVs and Blu-ray players made by Sony and Vizio, as well as Skype in classrooms and developing countries to help communities in need.

Skype Purchases Qik

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I have Gmail, like many of you do. Over the past months, Google has been adding handy scripts to enhance the experience. Just the other day, they added the possibility for you to do live video chat with your friends. All you need is a Webcam, and the small download to install from Google.

I was looking in my account to see who happened to be online while I was recording this video. Looks like my friend Rick from Geeks and the live community. I connected with him, and was amazed at the high quality of this service. Both the image and voice quality are of the highest caliber.

It’s not going to get any easier than this, really. Just point and click, that’s all there is to it. You can pop the video out of the regular browsing experience, so you can continue to surf online while you are video chatting with someone. I’ve never really seen something like this done in a better fashion. Kudos to Google.

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Are You Using Audio and Video in Gmail Yet?

From Skype Journal, although the permalink for the article is currently 404:

Effectively without telling you Skype has raised the cost of every Skype Call. They call it a connection fee. So you make a less than 30 second call and leave a quick voicemail. In the good old days of SkypeOut this action cost you 2 cents. You would probably be surprised to learn that today the same call will cost 6 cents. Not much if all your calls are one hour long. A huge amount if the other person isn’t there.

I’m getting ready to start using the Pro version of Pamela to start recording video… should I be holding off?

Skype Increases Cost of Calls, Silently?