Ashton Kutcher is far from a popular celebrity in the tabloids or the blogosphere. The toy boy of Demi Moore has come in for a lot of criticism, some of it deserved since he hooked up with Demi.

And yet, Ashton Kutcher has embraced new media, from Twitter to Qik, and you can only say he’s doing it right.

We first wrote about Kutcher on Twitter back in January, when he said words beyond his years, suggesting that booing outgoing President George W Bush was disrespectful. Many may not have agreed, but we got it straight from him, and that’s the key difference. Not filtered, or misconstrued, but directly from him.

Kutcher isn’t a one hit wonder with new media, and he’s taken to Qik as well to show bits of his life. Recently he came under fire for criticizing a neighbor creating noise; again, a situation where some disagreed, but the key difference is that it was unfiltered. On Feb 9 he recorded on his mobile paparazzi calling Demi Moore a “a crazy little bitch.” The key difference was that for the time that video was taken, Kutcher controlled the output. Not the Paps, not his media handlers or reps, him.

Whether you agree or not with each message is in some ways irrelevant. Celebrities properly using tools like Qik or Twitter (ie: not letting their publicist or reps update it) really break down the barriers between what is reported to be the truth, and what actually is, even when it’s not always good.

Some won’t like me saying this, but Kutcher, along with Stephen Fry are leading examples of how celebrities could and should be communicating with fans.

For me, I’ve never been an Ashton Kutcher fan before, but now I’m hooked. Honest, raw feedback from a star in the spotlight is something we need more of. Sure, I don’t always agree with everything he says, what I do agree with is that it’s clear that what we are seeing comes from him, not some publicist lead PR driven version of what he should be.

Even if you don’t like him, credit him for being out there; he leads by example.

You can follow Kutcher on Twitter here.

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Qik lets you stream video from your phone to the Internet with a couple of clicks. Online viewers can then chat and interact with you as you transmit your live feed. It’s been used for reporting live coverage of events such as hurricanes and earthquakes, or even presidential debates.

Qik just recently signed a deal with Nokia to have its utility preloaded on its 5800 model. It’s also already available on Symbian, Windows Mobile, and other Java-based phones. As for an iPhone app, Qik has yet to announce any official release date — but there are signs of progress. The company is actively working on an iPhone application and has an early version under development, as Robert Scoble learned while touring Qik’s headquarters last week. (See his Qik-created video here.)

The BlackBerry version is expected to enter beta mode within the “coming weeks,” company reps say. Additional BlackBerry devices will receive support once the program reaches that point.

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Live mobile streaming service Qik has signed a new deal with Nokia that will see the Qik client offered as standard on at least one Nokia phone.

The first Nokia phone to include Qik preloaded will be the Nokia 5800, Nokia’s newly launched iPhone competitor that also offers Nokia’s Comes With Music service. BusinessWeek has a review of the phone here, and VentureBeat has details of the music aspect here.

There was no word yet on whether other Nokia phones will offer Qik preinstalled, but certainly it’s a small boost for Qik in a competitive space. Now if only they could get an official iPhone application up on the iTunes store

(via Washington Post)

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This support is expected after Microsoft projected that it would be selling 20 million Windows Mobile licenses in FY08 across 55 countries. It’s a win-situation for Qik more than for Microsoft.

Moreover, in an interview with Techcrunch, Qik’s co-founder Bhaskar Roy revealed that Microsoft will be helping the company push their service.

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