WorldTV partners with Qik for live video

Ireland-based WorldTV, an online TV startup which lets users mix clips from video sharing sites and their webcam, is adding interoperability with US-based mobile video broadcast service Qik, which itself just raised a $3 million Series B round. Qik users will be able to stream live video to WorldTV channels – adding a live element to its existing integration with LiveVideo – and WorldTV users can now broadcast live video from their mobile phones simultaneously on Qik.com and their WorldTV channel.

Qik’s funding comes from Marc Benioff, Arjun Gupta, and George Garrick. Qik allows users to stream video from their S60 Nokia cameraphones to the Web and integrates with Twitter, although the company has plans to support all smart and Java-enabled phones. Competitors include Mogulus and Kyte. Qik has raised a total of $4M to date. The company recently joined up with Justin.tv to provide a lifecasting service with mobile capabilities. Qik’s owner Visivo is now understood to be dropping its name in favour of its Qik brand name.

With “under £500,000” in private funding, WorldTV ‘s Flash-based interface allows users add clips from YouTube, Metacafe, Yahoo, Google Video, Blip.tv and others. It then puts these into a playlist which plays them automatically, effectively creating a full-screen TV channel. You can also watch channels created by other people. A number of other sites allow users to create personalised internet video channels including Vpod.tv, Cozmo, Kyte, me.tv, Mogulus, Magnify and SplashCast, but WorldTV has a simple, consumer-friendly feel to it. Users can also embed WorldTV channels in web pages. A channel can be promoted using a variety of social media tools including RSS, Twitter and widgets.

Launched in November, WorldTV is currently available in six languages. Its two founders are based in Ireland and the UK, and it has seven full time staff, with a development team in the Ukraine. The co-founders are Alx Klive, a former TV show host and producer (who registered the WorldTV domain in 1995) and former music industry executive Ashley Balchin.

Klive says that eventually programmers will be able to add adverts between clips from which they’ll get a revenue share from third party video ad networks.

The revenue model is based on a subscription-based prosumer version for additional scheduling features and an enterprise version for broadcasters with logo overlays – something which Klive says Google hasn’t had a problem with.

He also tells me the site went through the 20,000 channel mark yesterday and it has 2 million unique users monthly and is aiming for 5 million mark over the next 12 months.

In January WorldTV released its “Top 100 Cities” — locations from around the world that are watching the most video. The top five cities include Madrid, Paris, London, Bogota and Barcelona.