TechCrunch

Kyte CEO Daniel Graf is taking another big step towards turning the cell phone into a video distribution platform. “This is a big day for Kyte,” he tells me, “our biggest release since we launched our beta last April.” Up till now, Kyte allowed people to create their own personal TV channels on the Web by uploading videos from their cell phones to various widgets and to Kyte.tv. Today, Kyte is adding live video streaming from both mobile phones and Webcams, which is broadcast through your personal Kyte channel and archived for later viewing. (Sign up here for the private beta. Watch out, Justin.tv and Ustream). It also raised an additional $6.1 million from Steamboat Ventures and Swedish mobile operator TeliaSonera to close out its Series B round for a total of $21.1 million.

But most importantly, Graf is zeroing in on making Kyte a platform for musicians, media companies, and mobile carriers. He sees Kyte being used more by established personalities and media companies to produce the initial content, and then being shared and distributed by the audience via the Kyte player. To that end, he just launched Kyte.com as a site for branded partners (including bloggers) to tap into the Kyte platform. All four major music labels are using Kyte to create branded players that can be widgetized and distributed all over the Web. (See ours below, which shows an interview with Graf that I filmed using his cell phone).