It’s only been possible for about a year and it’s still very much the preserve of the ‘early adopter set’, but streaming live video from your phone to the internet has huge potential.  Just as web browsing and reading email on a mobile phone has become an everyday thing for many people, in a couple of years we could all be broadcasting our own TV stations live from wherever we are.

Sure, video calling has never taken off like many expected to but broadcasting is entirely different and could be a whole lot more appealing.  Here are some reasons why I think it could be the next big mobile ‘killer app’.

1. People love to share

Video calling has failed so far because most people don’t want friends and family to see their face, complete with spots and that Marmite stain from their lunch, when they phone them.  However, a lot of people would love to be able to share important moments live online.  Grandma can’t make it to your university graduation ceremony?  Hold up your phone and stream it live online.  Want to share your wedding with the world?  No worries - set up a phone on a tripod and away you go.  In fact, someone has already done this…

2. People love to show off

People already make their own (usually dire) TV shows and publish them on Youtube.  The next stage is surely to stream them live and mobile phones are the cheapest and most accessible way of doing it.  Look out for this trend growing over the next year.

3. People love watching news as it happens

Publicly-generated content has been one of the biggest innovations in TV news over the past few years. We’ve grown used to seeing photos and videos of hot news stories shot by the public before the professional cameras had a chance to get to the scene.  With the right technological backend it’ll be possible for journalists (and maybe even the public) to stream live video straight onto the TVs of millions of people.  That said, if I was a news editor I’d be sticking to journalists doing the streaming but maybe I just don’t trust the public!

4. Schools love to innovate

Or rather, companies love to sell innovative technologies to schools.  Said technologies often end up unused in a cupboard but that’s another story.  Imagine a group of kids out on a trip streaming live footage back to the school where other children then use the footage to create a news report about the trip.  For creative teachers the possibilities are huge.

So there you go, just four reasons why video streaming has such huge potential.  There are bound to be many more applications for the technology.  In order to reach that mass-market potential though, the networks need to jump on the live video streaming bus and get the software pre-installed on phones that can handle it.  At the moment they’re probably too scared of people using vast amounts of 3G data to be encouraging video streaming. That said, UK network Three have a history of innovating with data services.  My prediction is that in the next  six months or so they’ll be preloading Qik, Flixwagon or a similar service with their smartphones.

Streaming video from mobile phones is a phenomenon waiting to happen (although there are ethical concerns).  You can see my Qik account here, although I haven’t put any new videos up since July.  I reckon I’m going to try doing some live streaming video-based blog posts soon.  How will that work?  Well - you’ll just have to wait and see!