Skype Qik was a

video messaging Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from a mobile phone over a cellular network. Users and providers may refer to such a message as a PXT, a picture message, or a multimedia ...

service by

Skype Skype () was a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for IP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also had instant messaging, file transfer, ...

. It was created by the company

Skype Technologies Skype Technologies (also known as Skype Software, Skype Communications, Skype Inc., and Skype Limited) was a telecommunications company headquartered in Luxembourg, Luxembourg, whose chief business was the development and marketing of the vid ...

, who acquired ''Qik''. The service, offered for

Android Android most commonly refers to: *Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), a mobile operating system primarily developed by Google * Android TV, a operating system developed ...

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

, and

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft Mobile for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design languag ...

devices, allowed users to exchange video messages between individuals or within a group. Previously, the Qik service offered a mobile-based live video-sharing website and two-way video conferencing application that allowed users to stream live video from their cell phones to the internet. Qik enabled users to record and upload video directly from supported cell phones. Qik, a

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

startup A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to ...

, launched its

alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter ''aleph'' , whose name comes from the West Semitic word for ' ...

version in December 2007 and went into public

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; or ) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Ancient Greek, beta represented the voiced bilabial plosive . In Modern Greek, it represe ...

in July 2008. Qik was compatible with approximately 140+ cell phones. Qik videos can be shared on numerous services including Ovi Share,

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

via

Facebook Connect The Facebook Platform is the set of services, tools, and products provided by the social networking service Facebook for third-party developers to create their own applications and services that access data in Facebook. The current Facebook Pla ...

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

Livestream Livestreaming, live-streaming, or live streaming is the streaming media, streaming of video or Digital audio, audio in real-time communication, real time or near real time. While often referred to simply as ''streaming'', the real-time nature ...

, 12secondstv,

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

Blogger A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

Seesmic Seesmic was a suite of freeware World Wide Web, web, Mobile phone, mobile, and Desktop computer, desktop Computer application, applications which allowed users to simultaneously manage user accounts for multiple social networks, such as Facebook ...

Tumblr Tumblr (pronounced "tumbler") is a microblogging and Social networking service, social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and is owned by American company Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content ...

WordPress WordPress (WP, or WordPress.org) is a web content management system. It was originally created as a tool to publish blogs but has evolved to support publishing other web content, including more traditional websites, electronic mailing list, ma ...

Digg Digg (stylized in lowercase as digg) is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select articles specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral phenomenon, viral Internet iss ...

StumbleUpon StumbleUpon was a website, browser extension, toolbar, and mobile app with a "Stumble!" button that, when pushed, opened a semi-random website or video that matched the user's interests, similar to a random web search engine. Users were able to ...

Del.icio.us Delicious (stylized del.icio.us) was a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. The site was founded by Joshua Schachter and Peter Gadjokov in 2003 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. By the end of 2008, ...

MySpace Myspace (formerly stylized as MySpace, currently myspace; and sometimes my␣, with an elongated Whitespace character#Substitute images, open box symbol) is a social networking service based in the United States. Launched on August 1, 2003, it w ...

, and

Technorati Technorati is a search engine and a publisher advertising platform. Technorati launched its ad network in 2008. In 2016, Synacor acquired Technorati for $3 million. The company's core product was previously an Internet search engine for search ...

. The videos can also be shared directly on the Qik website or embedded on a webpage for live or pre-recorded videos. The company's

headquarters Headquarters (often referred to as HQ) notes the location where most or all of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. The term is used in a wide variety of situations, including private sector corporations, non-profits, mil ...

were located in

Redwood City Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Bay Area of Northern California, approximately south of San Francisco and northwest of San Jose. The city's population was 84,292 according to the 2020 census. The Port of Redwo ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, with a satellite office that was located in

Zelenograd Zelenograd (, , ) is a city and administrative okrug of Moscow, Russia. The city of Zelenograd and the territory under its jurisdiction form the Zelenogradsky Administrative Okrug (ZelAO), an exclave located within Moscow Oblast, north-west ...

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. It was announced on January 6, 2011, at CES, that Skype had acquired Qik for a sum of $150 million. On February 22, 2016, Microsoft announced their plans to retire the Skype Qik app on March 24, citing low usage. Many features from the app have been integrated into the Skype app.

History

Qik was founded in a garage by Ramu Sunkara, Bhaskar Roy and Nikolay Abkairov in 2006. In April 2008, Qik received $3 million (~$ in ) in Series B

funding Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm use ...

from

Marc Benioff Marc Russell Benioff (born September 25, 1964) is an American internet entrepreneur and philanthropist. Benioff is best known as the co-founder, chairman and CEO of the software company Salesforce, as well as being the owner of ''Time (magazine ...

(

Salesforce.com Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, e-commerce, analytics, artificial intelligence, and appl ...

), Arjun Gupta (Telesoft Partners), and George Garrick (

Jingle Networks 1-800-FREE-411 is an American service offering advertising-supported directory assistance, operated by Marchex. Service Callers dial 1-800 (888 or 866)-FREE411 73-3411from any phone in the United States to use the toll-free service. Sponsors cov ...

). In September 2008, a month after its beta release, Qik received an undisclosed amount of investments from

Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was o ...

veterans

Marc Andreessen Marc Lowell Andreessen ( ; born July 9, 1971) is an American businessman and former software engineer. He is the co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used web browser with a graphical user interface; co-founder of Netscape; and co-founder and ...

and

Ben Horowitz Benjamin Abraham Horowitz (born June 13, 1966) is an American businessman, investor, blogger, and author. He is a technology entrepreneur and co-founder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz along with Marc Andreessen. He previously co ...

. Both agreed to serve as board advisers on Qik. In mid-2009, Qik received another round of funding under $5.5 million (~$ in ) from Peter Loukianoff at Almaz Capital and Quest Venture Partners, and some private investors. In January 2011,

acquired Qik for $150 million.Skype announces plans to acquire Qik
/ref> On March 19, 2014, Skype and Qik users received emails announcing the original Qik service was being retired. Notification of the impending shut-down was also posted on the company website. The Qik service was subsequently shut down on April 30, 2014. The new Skype Qik service was launched on October 14, 2014. After 9 years of service, on February 23, 2016, Microsoft decided to shut down Qik, therefore users will no longer be able to send or receive any messages via the video chat application. However, the company has also stated that many features of Qik are available via the Skype app.

References

{{Microsoft Social networking services Blog hosting services IOS software Android (operating system) software Windows Phone software 2007 establishments in California Skype 2011 mergers and acquisitions Defunct instant messaging clients

History

See also

References