We are so excited to be a part of the new Nokia 5800 XpressMusic device launch that was announced earlier today. Qik will be available on the device directly from the Download! folder enabling owners of this WiFi enabled, touchscreen Nokia 5800 XpressMusic to get qikking right away.

Anticipation around Thursday night's vice presidential debate is reaching a fever pitch in the US and - judging from all of the media I'm watching - around the world. As one of my friends on Twitter said this morning, today is like Christmas Eve for political buffs and passionate voters. That seems to be true whether you support Obama or McCain - or if you just want to see what kind of fun Tina Fey and Dave Letterman are going to have with all this. :)

Along with our friends at the BBC, Qik is interested in what YOU think about the VP debate. Your expectations, your reactions - even your viewing parties are something we want to check out. If you have an opinion about this highly anticipated event (and I'm sure you do), we'd like to know about it. If you're gathering friends to cheer on your candidate, we'd like to see how you organize and mobilize.

This is all part of a very freewheeling experiment that we're doing in conjunction with the BBC's rather popular Have Your Say platform. If your Qik contribution about the VP debate is really something, it could end up on the BBC site or even on the BBC's international TV news. We'll see how it goes, but right now the results - unlike those of the debate - are in your hands.

If you'd like to contribute to our experiment with the BBC, simply send a blank email to vpdebate@qik.com with your Qik username as the subject line. We'll let you know by return email if you've been selected as part of the lottery to find contributors for our experiment.

Check back here tomorrow for more details on how to watch our experiment unfold as the debate does!

Downtime is always a pain, so would like to give you a heads-up in advance that we'll be going through a maintenance upgrade on Sunday, September 28 from 8:00am PST to 12:00noon PST. During this scheduled downtime, you will not be able to Qik in any way. Videos will not be captured or retained during this time.

Believe me, it pains us to remove the ability to Qik from you guys, no matter how briefly. The good news for us is that the phenomenal growth you all have brought us is what necessitates this upgrade. We will definitely try our best to make this as quick and painless as possible.

It has been over 9 months since we first announced Alpha of Qik and I still get amazed by people's reaction to Qik and how things shape up so quickly at Qik. Today, what caught my attention was Ashton Kutcher streaming live to BlahGirls.com - his new startup.

It started out last week at TechCrunch50 with Ashton Kutcher getting a taste of Qik and then mentioning Qik in his blogpost on Myspace. And now a week later he has become a Qikker - streaming live to qik.com/blah.

To stay updated on what's happening with Ashton Kutcher and BlahGirls.com - signup and follow qik.com/blah.

Last week after a long time had a chance to meet up with my friends from Oracle. I was really impressed with the way they had integrated Qik into Oracle blogs to highlight video blogging with business logic around it for approvals such that qiks from approved reporters can do live video blogging while qiks from non-approved reporters go through an approval process prior to it appearing in the blog. It takes it even further, where based on the tags associated with the qik it creates a social graph around that qik.

This integration with the videoblog will be showcased at Oracle OpenWorld in the "Inside Innovation" area, where we have been given a booth along with 2 large monitors that will be showcasing a video wall with the latest 4 qiks that will be taken by 34 official videographers and who knows how many other qikkers at the event.