Guest commentary by Jason Amunwa

Cellphones today are a far cry from the chunky brick-like handsets we used to lug around back in the 90’s. Somewhat ironically, the smaller they get, the greater their feature sets seem to grow. Many of these features are somewhat inane (remember Sprint’s completely un-annoying Push-to-Talk phones?), however it seems we’ve reached the tipping point at which things are getting very interesting. I talk specifically about mobile video.

UStream and Qik are putting mobile video in the hands of consumers

UStream.tv and Qik (pronounced “quick”) have both caught my attention as heralds of a new age of video-on-the-go. Both are free services that allow you to capture video via your smartphone camera, and broadcast it live to the internet for the consumption of the masses.

Not only can you capture and share your every waking moment with a single button press, but you can invite your viewers to comment on what they see via real-time text chat, that shows up right on your phone’s screen, as you’re broadcasting. And to think that Justin, (of Justin.tv fame), required all kinds of headgear for the same effect, just 2 years ago…

The possibilities of these services are, to me, endless, and homebuilders especially should take notice: time to forget all the excuses you’ve been making about not being able to provide video walkthroughs of your homes – you can now do it for free, using nothing more than the phone in your sales agent’s pocket. This is absolutely perfect for those of you who work with out-of-state clients, that can’t make it to a tour in person, yet need to get a sense of the home from the inside, before becoming a serious prospect, or for when an agent’s and customer’s schedules can’t quite line up.

The only thing I think is missing is the ability to have these videos broadcast to viewers’ smartphones – at which point, we’re truly at the beginning of the golden age of mobile video, and the whole idea of Citizen Journalism will just have gone to the next level.