As bloggers gained their “Blogger’s Lounge” at Pepsi Center located down the hall form dressing rooms for the television networks at the United States Democratic convention 2008, ‘Qikkers’ ,the users of a new widget called Qik, also broadcasted live videos from Denver in real time.
Qik is a content syndication app that consolidates and streams live video from wherever directly from their cell phone as mobile phone users capture it using Qik’s phone to web service. As Qik’s CEO Ramu Sunkara suggested: “Now, Qikkers streaming live from the DNC can connect with an even wider audience. Combining Qik’s live video service with NewsGator’s broad syndication power gives bloggers at the DNC unprecedented reach.” (http://www.newsgator.com)
“Just as TV coverage of the presidential race gained its power with the televised debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in 1960, Internet blogging seems to be coming into its own in 2004.” (Marsha Walton,CNN) For the first time, the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention credential a small number of bloggers to cover their nominating processes. Democrats issued about 120 credentials for bloggers at this year’s event, three times as many as they did for their convention in Boston in 2004.
The influence and impact of blog on the politics in recent years is undeniable. Qik, as a new communication technology, amplifies the new media voice. The recent notable event making Qik gaining its reputation in politics was made by Steve Garfield, a video blogger. During primary season in New Hampshire, Garfield heard of the whereabouts of Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter and scooped CNN to an important announcement by broadcasting a live interview with his cell phone. Likewise, at a rally for Barack Obama in Boston, he used his cell phone to give viewers a crowd-eye view of the gathering, ending his broadcast next to a C-Span cameraman. ( Live from the Scene, by Paul Berger)
As Obama’s trailblazing use of the Internet to fuel his campaign, new media became a new weapon in new world of politics. “George Bush never could’ve been elected president if he’d been at Yale now and there’d been cell phone cameras around,” said by Thomas L. Friedman, a New York Times columnist and author of The World Is Flat. (By Caroline McCarthy, News.com)
Here is the link to a Qik from DNC on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN3tmS5kwj0
Posted by Hao Zhou
Originally posted September 2, 2008 at PolicyByBlog