Nokia’s (life) viNe

For the next two months I am participating in the Nokia viNe project, of which a number of different folks from around the world have been given trial Nokia N82’s that have a new Nokia geo-tracking-photo-video-music application* called lifeviNe**. At its most simple, lifeviNe is a 2nd major iteration of SportsTracker mobile app that has been repurposed and redesigned for photo and video geo-tracking rather than adding photos to one’s workout.
This past February, I had the opportunity to participate in the Nokia Urbanista Diaries, where four bloggers / photographers were sent around the world in four separate two-week trips. During the Urbanista Diaries trip, we used Nokia N82’s to take photos, all the while we ran SportsTracker as we went out and about. At the end of every “Workout”, I would upload the “Workout” to my account at the SportsTracker web site, and then the Urbanista Flash app on the Nokia Nseries website would display my/our photos on the geo-tracked-located-mapped route for each of the Urbanista Diarists.

I had several objections to using SportsTracker, of which my two greatest were that I was unable to pick and choose the photos I wanted uploaded and other other was that I was unable to upload the photos and geo-tracked kml files to my own blog but could only upload them to Nokia’s SportsTracker web app. I am a big believer in owning your own stuff and still love Nokia’s LifeBlog after four years of use due to the fact that I can upload all the photos to my Movable Type blog. Then my posts and photos are on my server, not a company that may or may not have the service in a few years or may or may not ever offer the ability to export or backup my data.
Why did it matter if the SportsTracker app on the mobile uploaded all my photos from one “Workout” session? Well, I belong to the shoot frequently and often school of photography. I uploaded nearly 1300 photos in the two weeks that I was on the Urbanista trip. this was overkill. I also like to send my very best photo of the day to my blog, a few others to flickr, and then I am willing to share the other good ones up to other services (many times these photos will overlap).
The true treat of the lifeviNe mobile app is that it allows me to choose which media (photos taken, videos captured, or songs listened to) I want to upload with each “Journey.” As stated above, lifeviNe appears to based on the same mobile app as SportsTracker, but it has been overhauled in not just the user interface and experience, but also in the language used (Yay, I am not Joe Average anymore!). Overall, it is a much better user experience for a mobile photographer who loves to take daily photo walks. Now, if they would only allow me to add in my own server information so that I could send the chose photos and geo-tracked data to my own server.
At this point, I don’t know when the lifeviNe Mobile App will be available for download to your Nokia mobile, but I will ask this week when I am in Helsinki and report back to you all.
Footnotes:
* No, I will not call lifeviNe a widget. A widget is a snippet of code that has functionality that one can paste onto one’s website and it does something (like the flickr badge is in essence a widget). An application on one’s mobile is a mobile app. lifeviNe and SportsTracker are mobile apps. Sorry to descend into semantics here, but when we tech folk toss around buzzwords is makes it very confusing for average folk. If we are clear and consistent in our terminology***, then people might understand what we are talking about and use the product or software.
Please further note, that due to various IP/trademark/corporate bits that at this time the LifeviNe mobile app will now be called Nokia viNe, even though the app on the N82 in my mitts is lifeviNe.  Yes, it is confusing, but please take up all complaints to the lawyers at Time-Life.
** At the time of publishing, the mobile app’s name will most likely be changed from lifeviNe to Nokia viNe, due to certain company’s with the name of Time-Life who feel that there is a trademark infringement, although I personally prefer lifeviNe to Nokia viNe. One company can’t own every use and combination of the word life. WtFE.
*** While we are at it, can we throw out any phrases that use “Rich” in front of the words web, app, application, mobile, etc? And then convince the marketing folk to do so as well? kthxbai.
**** If you are viewing this post on Black Phoebe :: Ms. Jen, click on the thumbnails, as it will walk you through a Lightbox slideshow. If you are viewing this post on Darla Mack’s S60 News and Reviews, then I don’t have access to Darla’s templates to add the Lightbox scripts, sorry, but you get the idea.