Folks,

I'm enjoying my four-week summer holidays until 22 July, traveling around Italian and Finnish countryside. I'm off the grid, so don't expect me to act on your emails or blog comments before 23 July, when I'll get back to office.

Have a great summer, everyone!!

- tommi

Dear WLAN hotspot providers,

Please optimize the login page for your WLAN hotspot for mobile devices.

Currently, if you try to login to a WLAN hotspot in cafes, airports, or hotels, you often get a page full of clutter. Yes, it works perfectly with laptops. But with mobile devices, it's a pain in the arse.

You don't want to do that. Not anymore. It's 2007, and WLAN enabled mobile devices - including the ones from Nokia - are selling like hot cakes. Very soon, there will be more WLAN enabled mobile devices than laptops in the world. Even sooner, there will be more WLAN enabled mobile devices than laptops in your hotspot (because people carry their phones always).

Please, do a favor to yourself, and optimize the login page for mobile devices. Please, remove the unnecessary clutter.

And if you agree, please spread the word!

via Tero Lehto

Note: FON provides a really good Symbian client that makes the login unnecessary. I used their login page as an example only because I didn't have other screenshots at hand. Sorry, FON folks.

I tried to download the brand-new beta version of Opera Mini 4 using the instructions:

1. Point your phone browser to mini.opera.com/beta
2. Click "Download Opera Mini"
3. Follow the simple setup steps on your phone

For some reason, this procedure did something strange with my N95. Instead of installing Opera, it saved the URL of the installation file as an RSS feed to my S60 browser. Urgh.

After cursing silently for a second, I tried the same thing again - this time using WAP access point instead. Now, it worked like a charm.

I wonder what went wrong, and who should fix what...

Did the same thing happen to you?

I just received an email from Nokia Web Server team:

Today we have finally reach point release of Mobile Web Server beta 1.0 http://mymobilesite.net

Mobile Web Server will be (soon) launched as internet launch though, as example, of link distribution Nokia Beta Labs, Forum Nokia and hopefully wide variety of blog entries.

Please feel free to spread the word for those you feel would like to pioneer new era of Web and start to innovate all cool and now possible use scenarios

Congratulations!!

To understand what the Mobile Web Server is all about, check out the early reviews:
AAS / Rafe Blandford: Nokia Mobile Web Server - the future of smartphones or a geeky blind alley?
Darla Mack: A Look Into Nokia's Mobile Webserver

I've been playing around with the software too, and it's intriguing. Sure, the initial use cases such as sharing your calendar and gallery are interesting, but that's not the point. The point is that there's now a full-blown web server in your pocket. The point is the "a-ha" moment in the depths of your imagination, when you realize some unexpected opportunities. The point is what happens next.

Go.

Yes, I fully understand the inherent memory, battery power, processing power, and network coverage limitations of a mobile device. So, when thinking about the stuff that the Mobile Web Server enables, please focus on the benefits of mobile, not on the limitations.

Via Russell Beattie, I just learned a new trend. Websites are increasingly giving the URL for their mobile-optimized versions in m.* format, instead of *.mobi format, which was supposed to conquer the world.

Examples: m.yahoo.com, m.youtube.com, m.live.com, m.ask.com, m.clusty.com, etc.

I think there are two reasons:
1) Less clicks (typing m.youtube.com requires 6 less clicks than www.youtube.mobi)
2) You don't have to register a separate domain

Ok, Google still uses URL formats like www.google.com/m, www.google.com/reader/m, and mobile.google.com, and Microsoft formats like mobile.msn.com but I'm sure they'll be quick to spot the trend.

Anyway, if this trend is real and going to continue, I think we should reconsider having "www" as default URL in S60 Browser:

What do you think? Will one of the mobile URL formats become a de-facto standard? Which one?

It was nice to meet many of you at "Evening with S60" in Helsinki yesterday.

Things that I promised to do:
- 1. Ask from our Voice UI team to add a possibility to switch off Voice Commands. Otherwise, Bluetooth headsets that don't have keylock sometimes make unwanted "pocket calls". Done.
- 2. Ask from PC Suite team about the SMS backup: when you copy-paste messages from PC Suite => File Manager => Messages folder to your PC, how could you preserve the message dates in file properties? Done.
- 3. Tell to the team behind Data Transfer application about two volunteers who were willing to give direct feedback about the app, when using it in daily synching between multiple devices. Done.

Did I forget something?

Note: by "done", I mean that I passed on the message to the right Nokia people. No promises about implementation etc.

Quick note: got tired with our awful webmail system for myfirstname.mylastname@s60.com.

In the future, please use myfirstname.mylastname@gmail.com (= Tommi Vilkamo) to contact me privately.

My official corporate email is naturally myfirstname.mylastname@nokia.com, but please don't use it or I will consider you as an evil spammer.

Aron asked a lot of questions:

Hello Tommi! Now that you are in strategic planning, how do you see the strategy of Nokia not allowing FP upgrades and binding the web browser versions with FP-s?

How does it feel - from the perspective of the strategic planner - that your excellent S60 browser on V3, FP0 is not able to save web pages because the Web 2 browser is still bound with FP1 only and not available as a sis install?

How about E90 not supporting widgets because that is bound with FP2 and E90 is FP1?

what can-will You do about this?
Best regards: Aron

Well, since Nokia/S60 strategy and roadmap are not public info, I can't comment much. But personally, I believe it makes sense, increasingly, to update critical Internet apps such as browser to older devices. Whether it is technically and economically feasible in this case, I don't know. And in any case, it's a tactical decision, not under my jurisdiction. Go back to harass Ganesh ;-)

Wow. Our viral network is starting to work magnificently. Nokia didn't do any official announcements about the beta version of Nokia Media Transfer for Mac. Just a small mention by me, Charlie, and Dameon was more than enough to get the snowball rolling. There are already hundreds of blog mentions and dozens of (online) mainstream media stories.

Interesting.

I can think of three explanations:
1. Me, Charlie, and Dameon have become omnipotent influencers
2. The story was genuinely interesting (i.e. the app was good and/or in tremendous demand)
3. Collectively, our blog network works magnificently.

As much as I would like to believe in theory #1, research shows that the truth is a combination of #2 and #3.

Duncan Watts wrote in February 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review:

...we found that in certain circumstances, highly influential people have a significantly greater chance of triggering a critical mass – and hence a global cascade – than ordinary people. Mostly, however, cascade size and frequency depend on the availability and connectedness of easily influenced people, not on the characteristics of the initiators – just as the size of a forest fire often has little to do with the spark that started it and lots to do with the state of the forest.

If the network permits global cascades because it has the right concentration and configuration of adopters, virtually anyone can start one. If it doesn’t permit cascades, nobody can.

Our network is starting to approach the state that permits global cascades, started by virtually anyone. And I like it.

Got an email from Jussi-Pekka, a fabulous colleague of mine:

Here's a great app for the mac users. I was participating in the internal beta and this went live yesterday. This is totally different thing that the crappy media transfer for mac before.

This just makes usage of iTunes pleasure with my N95.

It made me to leave my iPod home.

Jussi

http://www.nokia.com/mac

Now I really need to go and buy that Mac.

Heh. Perfect timing for Johanna MacDonald to start a new S60 blog:

Warm welcome, Johanna!

Quote:

Imagine if you're kinda new to S60 and went to Tommi's S60 Application Blog, you'd probably be like WTF!? His blog, and most other S60 blogs assume you already know alot about S60.

Yup. As I just wrote, I will increasingly focus my blog to the 1% most informed, most passionate and most influential people.

Sorry folks for being so quiet in the blog world lately, and for being so slow to reply to your emails. I've been ultra-busy working with an important assignment, and now it's finally ready. Life is good.

Anyway, it's time (again) to reconsider what to do with this blog. I started the whole thing on November 2005, when I was working in a Nokia unit developing built-in S60 applications. I wrote mostly about our own apps and interesting 3rd party apps, listened to your feedback, and redirected the best comments directly to the developers. It felt natural, and it worked great.

Now, I work in a high-level strategy/planning team of the whole Nokia Software Platforms organization. Increasingly, writing about S60 apps feels a bit too niche as a topic. If you want to be successful in blogging, you need passion and authority over your topic area. As it happens, my passion and authority area is increasingly moving from S60 applications to the blast furnace of Nokia software offering and the Internet.

Here's what I have decided:

1. I'm going to keep this blog and URL

There are hundreds of incoming links, hundreds (thousands?) of RSS subscribers, and Google rankings are great. And since my name hasn't changed, the URL blogs.s60.com/tommi feels natural.

2. The focus of this blog will evolve

I have no aspirations anymore to be the #1 Nokia blogger, measured by the number of readers. Instead, I'll target the most passionate 1% of Nokia/S60 users, industry insiders, application / Internet service developers, online journalists, bloggers, and other influencers. You are the ones that I want to talk to, and to learn from.

The focus of this blog will evolve from S60 applications to the intersection of Nokia software offering and the Internet forces.

3. This blog might get a new name

Considering the evolving focus, any suggestions for the new name or punch line?