Veeker

Sector: Mobile applications, social software, video

Headquarters: San Francisco, CA

Management: Alex Kelly, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO, was formerly Head of Corporate Development for Pinnacle Systems. Roger Raderman, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing & Product Officer, was formerly founder of I-Film. Marcus Yoder, Co-Founder and SVP of Operations, was previously founder of Accelarus Consulting.

Secret Sauce: Recently out of stealth mode, Veeker is a newly launched mobile video site. Users record video clips on their phones, send them through Veeker, and they appear in a player on users’ websites. The service does this by capturing the mobile video clips sent by MMS and delivering them to the Web page. Sets of short clips can be subscribed to by RSS, which are played automatically in an embedded player on another site.

At its core, we’re talking about instant video messaging. The most basic use of the Veeker platform is to capture about 60 seconds worth of video (called a Veek, short for “video peek”) from a mobile phone and upload the video to Veeker. About a minute later, the clip is on the Veeker portal, where it is visible to the originators, the originators and their contacts, or the public (well, anyone who visits Veeker and checks it out). The engineering team has managed to maintain a high quality level if the video and audio, no small feat, considering the source is a tiny mobile phone.

While the service is cool and no doubt handy, it’s apparently just the tip of the iceberg for the Veeker team. Collections of Veeks are called VeekFeeds and, like RSS feeds, users can subscribe to other people’s feeds and see in near real-time what they’re up to whenever they upload Veeks to their feeds. On users’ personal Veeker pages, they can view both their own Veeks as well as Veeks created by their contacts. Veeks are arranged in chronological, but can also be grouped via tags or popularity. Users can control their associations with other Veeker users, specifying who can view the Veeks created. Users can have different subscriber groups and easily control their organization and membership.

The Veekerplayer syndicate feeds and publishes them to other sites. Users can embed a Veekerplayer in a social networking page, giving viewers a new way to participate in their friends lives. Veeker lets users contextualize video into their lives and that of their friends. It’s a great mix of social networking and the feel of “real-life” TV.

Certainly, the popularity of video sites proves plenty of interest in video as a communication medium. With its strong technology and business foundation, Veeker has already elevated the relatively simple concept of video instant messaging into a fun and potentially very useful product.

Seen and Heard: TechCrunch’s Michael Kirkpatrick says: “I won”t comment on the long term likelihood of widespread mobile video creation, but I will say that I am impressed by this company”s aims.” While Oliver, over on Mobile Crunch reports: “Veeker, the San Francisco based company that has been in high profile stealth mode for some time finally launches today and promises to change the way we use the video capability in our camera phones.”