Hello New York Times… Uh… the Urbanista Diaries campaign started in mid-January and ended in early March and your article came out on April 7th. Why wait to run the article a full month after the “live” portion is over?
If you are reporting on how Nokia is marketing with a new strategy of “hiring” bloggers and/or the marketing brilliance of the Urbanista Diaries, the why did you not interview one of the four of us?
I was not hired to go on the Urbanista Diaries trip, I was given a really cool opportunity to travel to India with a great camera phone, the N82, and do what I do every day – take lots of mobile photos and moblog them to a website with geo-data.
On the hiring bit? We were not paid, nor were any of the four of us given a phone. In fact quite a few of the phones were ‘lifted’ by DHL employees or Her Majesty’s Customs on the way back to the UK after the Urbanista trip was over*. WOM World (1000 Heads) bought the plane tickets and reimbursed our hotel, food, and local transport. Nokia reimbursed / paid 1000 Heads.
WOM World (1000 Heads) has a policy, that not only do the bloggers get to be honest, but we also return the phones after the trial period. That is a loan, not a hire or a buy.
Yes, Nokia is above the curve on internet marketing, more importantly they are including the mobile community, which in turn creates brand loyalty. Apple or LG or Sony-Ericsson have never offered me to trial a device nor have they asked my opinion on its use or software. Nokia has. This is good.
But, NYT, please do a wee bit more research. kthnxbai.
*****
* Yes, for the record, I am angry about this – crooked business makes me indignant. Given that the phones were to go back to the UK, I would have preferred them to arrived in Oxfordshire in one piece, not the box arriving but missing the phones out of the middle. If I ever meet up with the DHL dude who giggled upon receiving the last N82 for shipment… To the Moon! Fed Ex & USPS have my business from here on out.
Posts Tagged: n82
Urbanista Diaries : Best of Kerala Photo Essay
All photos taken by Jenifer Hanen in Bangalore, India, with a Nokia N82.
As a wrap up for my Urbanista Diaries adventure, I am going to be publishing photo essays of my favorite photos that I took in each city that I visited. Some of these photos are in my flickrstream, most of them on the nseries.com website, and some are new to everyone but me.
The above photos were taken in Fort Cochin & Surrounds, Kerala, India, from Wed. Feb. 13th to Fri. Feb. 15th, 2008. I really enjoyed how laid back Kerala was, it was a true treat from staying at the Delight Home Stay in Fort Cochin to the backwaters boat tour. I have previously blogged about it being “God’s Own Communist Country.”
Click on a thumbnail and then navigate through the lightbox slideshow by putting your mouse over the top right hand side of each photo, titles along the bottom.
Enjoy the photos, three more cities to come.
Thanks WOM World!
Tues 02.26.08 – I would like to give a BIG Thank You to all the lovely folk at WOM World for all their hard work to make the Nokia Nseries Urbanista Diaries mobile travel adventure successfully go off! Thanks y’all!
Photo taken in Oxford by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N82. WOM World folk – left to right: Colin, Richard, Siobhan, Amy, and Donna (unfortunately Frank and Robbie were not at lunch).
Urbanista Diaries : Best of Chennai Photo Essay
All photos taken by Jenifer Hanen in Chennai, India, with a Nokia N82.
As a wrap up for my Urbanista Diaries adventure, I am going to be publishing photo essays of my favorite photos that I took in each city that I visited. Some of these photos are in my flickrstream, most of them on the nseries.com website, and some are new to everyone but me.
The above photos were taken in Chennai (Madras), Tamil Nadu, India, from Sat. Feb. 9th to Mon. Feb. 11th, 2008. Big thanks once again to the Chennai Photowalk flickr group for such a fun photowalk day on Sun. Feb. 10, 2008.
Enjoy the photos, five more cities to come.
Nokia’s Sports Tracker could be ‘Photo Tracker’
The method of mobile blogging that we are using during the Nokia Urbanista Diaries adventure to send photos from the Nokia N82 phone to the Nseries Urbanista website is as follows:
1) Turn on Sports Tracker. Start a “workout”. Make sure the GPS signal is strong.
2) Start going around on the adventures and take photos. Go lots of new places, takes photos, make sure the GPS signal remains strong.
3) Stop the Sports Tracker “workout”. Click on “upload to service”. Sports Tracker will find the photos associated with the “workout” route and send them to the ST server with the GPS data and athletic data.
4) The Urbanista Diaries flash app then pulls the photos, geo & route data feed to create a photo map and the slideshow that you can watch on the site.
At the beginning of the year, I blogged that I really didn’t like Sports Tracker as a mobile blogging app for the reasons that it is created to be a sports tracker and not a photo tracker, I also wondered why Nokia has allowed Lifeblog to go dormant rather than adding the geo data capacity to that established app.
During the course of January, I tried Sports Tracker out a few times while walking Scruffy McDoglet and liked it as a mobile app to tell me how far we had walked and at what pace, but I still felt that it was not an app for mobile photo blogging.
Urbanistas Devin and Jay both blogged about their frustrations with Sports Tracker while out on their journeys and Ryan has tested it before starting his part of the Urbanista adventure.
I am now at the end of my second full day of mobile – geo – blogging with the Nokia N82 and Sports Tracker has been doing a good job of tracking where I have been going around Chennai, has added most of the geo data correctly, and has been able to find and send without error most of the 200+ photos I have taken. I am certainly not going to complain about how Sports Tracker sent up all 150 photos from today’s 4th Chennai Photowalk, no, actually I am going to praise the hard work that the developers have put into improving the system in the last four weeks that the Urbanista Diaries has been going.
What I would like to point out here is what Sports Tracker could do to make the application a little more photo mobile blogging friendly or spin off a sister app that would be ‘Photo Tracker’:
1) If Nokia wants Sports Tracker to be adopted and used regularly by more than just the athletic or tech geeks then make the mobile and web based user interface be visual with photos and geo data at as the first level of interaction.
Find someone’s mom who loves to take photos but is non-technical (I will donate my Mom to the cause) and have her be the UI tester without any explanation, if she can use the app while taking photos and then post them to the server, then everyone can. Take a big tip from Nokia’s Lifeblog app for the phone on this. The photo thumbs are the first thing that comes up and then you can do things with them via 2 different menus (one menu with the thumbnail display and one menu for each photo).
How could this work for Photo Tracker, well make the “timing” start when one opens the camera app – this action should be a choice as not everyone will want every photo geo tracked nor the pull on the battery resources that the GPS and tracking app take. Each photo should have a manual (at the time or later) opt out feature, as some photos you don’t want geo tracked and some you don’t want sent to the Photo Tracker server.
2) Yes, allow the photographer to choose which photos get sent up to the server from each timed tracking activity either before sending the data and photos to the server. The fact that Sports Tracker currently sends all the photos it can find during the interval of the activity is either too much (150 photos from today’s photowalk! Yikes!) or some photos should not be sent due to privacy or it is just a bad photo.
3) Now onto the Sports Tracker web based application… The colors and layout of each workout profile may be conducive to sports based athletic training and tracking, but not for photography or showcasing one’s mobile photos. Photo Tracker should have the photos up above the “fold” not buried as tiny thumbnails at the bottom of the web page. Don’t get me going on the green & black color scheme…
4) Take a tip from any number of social networking applications and allow the user to configure the layout to suit their needs: Sports folk will want the athletic data prominent and Photo folk can make the photos prominent. Also, allow the user to change the stylesheet: ie the colors, typography and minor layout changes (see blogger, typepad, vox, myspace, et al for how folks can customize the look).
5) Take a tip from any number of social networking apps and an allow the view/user to easily find one’s friends recent ‘posts’ / ‘activities’. Right now it is very difficult for me to find the most recent uploads from Ryan & Jay and I can click on Devin’s username to navigate to his space on Sports Tracker at all. Take a tip from Flickr on this, Flickr makes it really easy for me to see the most recent photos from my contacts and friends.
6) Last but not least: Own your own stuff. Allow the advanced mobile photographer or web dev the option to host and send the data to their own website and make it apart of the settings in Photo Tracker to post to your own blog if you so choose (Atom Protocol anyone?). This person can then take the athletic and geo data via the xml/kml file and with the photos create their own mobile app.
Lifeblog lets me post directly to my website via the Atom Protocol and that is why I prefer it to all the other mobile photo blogging apps out there, but it doesn’t embed the geo data. Sports Tracker and Shozu both embed the geo data but they don’t let me send the photos and data to my own site but only to their websites.
Frankly, after how Nokia seems to have left Lifeblog high and dry, why should I put up two plus years of photos and geo-data to Sports Tracker if in 2-3 years it will be DOA as well? Data portability and/or stability for long term archival purposes and url links is important.
At the very least, make all the data and photos be exportable, not just on the phone but also on the Sports Tracker / Photo Tracker site.
Some folks may argue that Sports Tracker already does the job of athletic activity tracking well. This is true. Why fiddle with the system and add a full featured Photo Tracker? Well, that is how we are currently using the system for the Urbanista Diaries as a Photo Tracker, not a Sports Tracker.
One could also argue that ShoZu and Flickr do much of the same functions as we are using Sports Tracker to do and that I envision that Photo Tracker could do, so why recreate the wheel? In web world, the first to enter the market is not always the best web app in the long run. When was the last time you used Friendster? Applications developed later can learn from others before them, iterate, add new features or goals and come out with the stronger user base, ie. MySpace and Facebook.
Nokia, how about a full featured Photo Tracker that takes the best of Lifeblog and Sports Tracker mashes ’em up, iterates a bit, and makes this mobile photo blogger darned happy? How about it? Run with it.
Nokia Urbanista Diaries – How to Follow Along
Yes, Ms. Jen leaves in less than 36 hours for her big adventure on the Nokia Urbanista Diaries adventure. Of course, I will be blogging photos and text here and at my Flickr account, but also check out the Urbanista site OR… even better embed the Urbanista widget on your website or MySpace or Facebook or the like.
Here is the code to embed the widge on your website or MySpace account:
<div id="flashcontent"><strong>In order to view the Nokia N82: The urbanista diaries you need JavaScript and Flash Player 8+ support</strong></div> <script src="http://www.nseries.com/nseries/v3/js/swfobject.js" type="text/javascript"></script> <script type="text/javascript">var so = new SWFObject('http://www.nseries.com/nseries/v3/media/campaigns/n82/widget.swf', 'Nokia N82: The urbanista diaries', '300', '250', '8', '#ffffff');so.addParam('wmode', 'transparent'); so.addParam('flashVars', 'bloggerID=4©=http://www.nseries.com/nseries/v3/media/campaigns/n82/data/en-R0/widget.xml'); so.write('flashcontent');</script>
For iGoogle or Facebook go to the Urbanista site to download the widget for your world. Pick the Ms. Jen widget…
Nokia’s Urbanista Diaries: The Countdown Begins
Gratuitous Dog Nose photo taken by Jen Hanen with her Nokia N95 in Dec. 2007
Tues 01.29.08 – One week from tomorrow afternoon, I get on an airplane and start the start of my portion of the Nokia Urbanista Diaries!
Hee hee hee… Can we say excited? Yep. Can we say extra excited about traveling to Europe -> India -> Europe with a Nokia N82 in hand? Yep. Can we say that there is too much to do before next Wednesday? Yep!
Here is my Urbanista Diaries schedule:
Wed. Feb. 6th : Leave LA for London
Thurs. Feb. 7th : Arrive London – Trot around London for the Day.
* Celebrate Chinese New Year with Steve Marshall at the Jade Garden in Soho for a Dim Sum lunch!
Fri. Feb. 8th : Depart London for Chennai, India
Late Friday / Early Sat : Arrive Chennai
Sat. Feb. 10th : Meet up with Urbanista Jay in Chennai, receive mobile ‘baton’
Mon. Feb. 11th : Depart Chennai for Bangalore
* Hangout in Bangalore for 2 days. Take photos.
Wed. Feb. 13th: Depart Bangalore for Kochi, Kerala
* Hangout in Kochi. Trot around taking photos.
Fri. Feb. 15th: Depart Kochi for Goa
* Goa. 2.5 days. Photos. Old Goa.
Mon. Feb. 18th: Depart Goa for Mumbai
* Mumbai (aka Bombay). 2.5 days. Photos. Have fun.
Early Thurs. Feb. 21st :Depart Mumbai for Vienna, Austria
*(Hello! One small suitcase. Tropical climate to European winter! Hello! Crazy!)
Sat. Feb. 23rd: Pass off mobile ‘baton’ to Urbanista Ryan
Sun. Feb. 24th : Depart Vienna for London.
*Attempt to stay in Oxford and London for a few days before departing for home (SoCal).
Wed. Feb. 26th : Fall into a puddle and sleep for multiple days.
* Then go to Austin, Texas for SXSW to speak at Interactive and enjoy Music from March 6 – 16th. ;o)
I will mind getting the two client websites I need to finish before departure on the 6th, as well as take my anti-malaria pills on schedule, and you all can mind your bits by doing the following:
1) Don’t forget that there is a contest to win a Nokia N82 every week during the Urbanista adventures. Just go to the website, look at the photos, log in, and identify the photo of the week. And hopefully win a kick ass camera phone.
2) Download the Urbanista Ms. Jen Widget and add it to your blog, iGoogle, Facebook or MySpace. If you can’t find the embed code to work for you, I have posted a plain text version here that can be copied and pasted onto your blog or MySpace space.
3) Hey, I am going to be in India from Feb. 9th to 20th. If you have any friends or connections in Chennai, Bangalore, Kochi, Goa or Mumbai who would like to go out on a mobile photo walk or show me the wonders of their city, please email me at ‘blackphoebe at gmail dot com’. Any recommendations would be lovely! Let me know!
Nokia’s Updater
One of the things that I love about Nokia’s Nseries line of phones is that they are mini-computers with a phone, camera, and internet connection. On top of all of that, one can update the firmware / software of the mobile device just like one can update their computer’s firmware or software.
Does your mobile start to get a little slow after a while or have blips & burps or freeze or crash? Well, if it is a Nokia, you can download the Nokia Updater to your PC, plug your mobile into the data cable and then into the computer, back it up, and then Update. Couldn’t be simpler, right?
Well, if you are me, an ardent Nokia fan, but also an owner of 2 Mac computers (15″ MacBook Pro & a 12″ PowerBook G4), you have a wee bit of a problem when it comes time to update one’s phone or internet tablet… it is called… how to borrow a PC… Trust me, do not, DO NOT, whatever you do, think you can run Nokia’s Updater from the Windows install of Parallels on your MacBook Pro. JUST SAY NO. I have a lovely little N80 brick that no amount of the Kings Men or repair people will put back together again…
Now every time an update is announced for the N95 or N800 tablet, I am VERY VERY VERY reluctant to even think about updating, even though both need it. I call my brother, ask if I can borrow his work PC laptop, drive over there, run the Nokia Updater application and find out if there is an update available. The N800 has had several updates since it arrived in October and the N95 (RM-159) has only had one last July, even though all the other N95’s in the world have had at least 3-5 updates since then.
My N95 is starting to sssslllllloooowwww down. It really needs a good firmware shot in the arm or in the patooty. I would love for it to focus and shoot a photo faster than its current stop, focus, focus, focus, pick nose, focus, focus, hey-look-theres-a-squirrel, focus, focus, hey! maybe I should take a photo speed. It is driving me crazy. The lower the light, the slower the focus with our friend the N95 v.1.
Mind you, my N95 is faster than my N80 was, but now that I have tasted the delights of the N82, the N95 is looking and working old & slow. Dang! It is only 6 months old and cost me a lot of $$$. Where is my update? Where is my update that I can do natively from my Mac?
A few days ago, I went and checked to see if there was an update available on the local borrowed PC for my N95. No new update. So sad.
But there was an update available for the N800 tablet. Ok, let’s update.
Updating. Updating.. Updating…
Nokia’s software tells me to turn off Tablet, disengage the cable, and reboot. Ok.
No go. No turn back on. Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap. Look at borrowed PC. Swear. Swear again. Crap.
Google problem. Find that there is a Mac hack to flash the firmware updates for the Nokia 770 and 800 available. So, I download it to my MacBookPro, download the last update and the newest update. Use my Mac to flash the N800 to its last update and… it turns back on… it works… it restores its data. All is well in N800 land, thanks to Mac!
Then I try to use my Mac and the flasher software to update the N800 tablet to the OS 2008 Tablet software. All is well. It works. Birds sing.
Then I use the Mac flasher to send it back to OS 2007 as a test. All is well. Take N800 tablet to borrowed PC, attempt to flash the OS 2008 tablet firmware using the PC. Bricked again. Crap. Use Mac to reflash. All is well again. Birds sing.
Moral of Story? Use a Mac. PC’s suck, esp. ones running MicroSquash. (My Dell with Ubuntu Linux is very nice. Linux gets less love from Nokia than Macs do.)
Moral of Story? Hey Nokia, increase your market share and profits by supporting Macs! Give your Mac owning fans some love. Do not accede all the market to Steve Jobs and the iPhone.
Moral of Story? I would like to see all Nseries devices get updates at least every 3 months. If I am going to spend over $500 US, I would like consistent support for at least 2 years.
Moral of Story? I want a Nokia Updater that works with my Nseries mobile device natively on my Mac.
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