Kiko Guys Back As Reality TV Stars

justintvlogo.pngTwo years ago Y Combinator invested in Justin Kan and Emmett Shear’s calendaring company, Kiko, which eventually folded after Google Calendar launched in 2006.

The Kiko guys have returned to the startup scene since their acquisition on eBay with two new partners and a new quirky live blogging startup, Justin.TV, also funded by Y Combinator. Justin.TV is a website entirely devoted to chronicling the life of one of the company’s founders, Justin Kan, around day and night via web cam. This might sound a lot like JenniCam circa ’96, ill-fated DotComGuy, or marketing ploy OurPrisoner, but some really cutting edge mobile technology sets the show apart. Justin won’t be chained to his house like these previous cam shows. Instead, armed with a head-cam, batteries, and 4 EVDO cards, he will roam free, streaming video across the mobile network and onto their own live flash content distribution platform.

On the site, you can watch the live feed of what Justin sees and hears, and chat, call, or text message him. The site also features a calendar that serves as his TV guide, listing his plans for the upcoming days. There are a couple boundaries about what Justin will film. He won’t be filming in the bathroom and will do his best to respect people’s wishes to not be on camera. His plans this afternoon will be to get a new wardrobe, and carry out some interviews with founders of other startups based out of San Francisco, such as ShoutFit, PairWise, and LicketyShip.

Justin.TV will sink or swim based on having interesting content, and while mobility spices up that scenery a bit, the life of a web entrepreneur is no episode of 24. As an answer to this, Justin is trying to keep his schedule interesting and East Coast time zone compatible, but will also feature archives of his most interesting content. The archives will be in the form of his personal blog, which will include his selected videos, and a raw archive of Justin’s life that viewers will soon be able to pick apart and mash together.

The long term goal of the project is to create an affordable live mobile video platform they can use to recruit other live bloggers. They already have plans to loan out the technology to a group tracking the Iowa local caucuses and have also set their sights on tracking some musicians.

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