Free Tool Broadens Bloggers' Horizons

A Los Angeles company wants to know, "Where would you stick it?" That is the tag line for a free multimedia tool that enables online sharing of photos, videos, and music files.

Advanced Video Communications is offering Stickam, a Web-based tool that lets bloggers, eBay sellers, and others transmit their own interactive media features over the Internet for free. The tool is scheduled to move out of Beta by early February.

Downloading and coding are not required for AVC's Stickam, an all-in-one live video conferencing, instant messaging, music and video launcher, and player.

The tool allows users to cut and paste JavaScript or HTML coding into personal Web pages, auction sites, blogs and other pages to display live or recorded video, photos, music, and to chat.

Users can text chat with up to 1,000 people at once, host video chats with 12 people, provide music, recorded video and slideshows simultaneously, the company said.

The tool works on Windows, Mac and Linux. platforms, and offers 500MB of free storage for videos, photo slide shows, and music. Individual video files up to 100MB and photos up to 5MB can be uploaded from mobile phones or recorded directly through Stickam. And posted on the Stickam site.

Stickam's music feature allows conversion from MP3 and WAV files to 100MB Flash files with copyright protection. The movie feature can be used with any Windows- or Mac-compatible Web cam. It supports AVI, MOV, WMV 3GP and MPEG formats.

The company said it prohibits downloads of others' content from Stickam players and monitors the Web-based material for obscene and prohibited content. It also has a "report abuse" function, allowing community members to flag content for review. Users must be at least 14 years old.

AVC plans to add RSS, Webcasting and podcasting soon. These features are under development and could be released in February, said AVC Chief Operating Officer Hiro Zusho during an interview Wednesday.

AVC has been testing the product with about 3,000 users. The company is targeting individual users as well as business-to-business sites.

The company is working on three methods for earning revenue from the product. Though the tool is free, the company may charge for premium packages, commercials, and licensing.