The Location Based Service LBS zone - Mobile technologies and location-aware social networking

A note from Nokia reps this week informs me that the Nokia viNe application will be rolled out to Joe public very soon... possibly even this week. viNe is a web service that enables users of the application to share their journeys, along with media collected along the way, with others. As a long-time Sports Tracker user, N95 enthusiasts, and evangelist of all things mobile and geospatial, I was provided with a pre-release version of viNe - details and a complete "How To" install and use the application are provided... enjoy! Enter Nokia viNe 101

Please note, for the purpose of testing I was running Nokia viNe which came pre-installed on a Nokia N82 supplied by Nokia. As of today I am now running viNe on a Nokia N95 8GB without any issues or problems.

Built on the very clever Sports Tracker, the application takes much of the Sports Tracker functionality but bundles it in a different way to make it more appealing to the every day user. In a nutshell, viNe users run the application on their S60 GPS enabled device (I was using a pre-release of viNe on a Nokia N82 supplied to me with the application), proceed along a journey, capture photos and video along the way and then upload their media along with their GPS track to share their viNe with friends and family. Unlike Sports Tracker, viNe also supports sharing music as well and geotags the location where you listened to a track on your device.

viNe functions much like the Nokia Sports tracker application does, if you're familiar with that one. You load and run the application when you start your journey, viNe attempts to get a GPS fix on your location and then proceeds to track your journey as you proceed. While on your walk, bike ride, drive, or ??? you simply load up the camera application to capture photos or video as you normally would. viNe geotags your media along the way, enabling you and others to see exactly where you were on the trip when you captured these moments. Additionally, if you listen to a music track while on your journey, the viNe application will geotag the location where you listened to the song (this appears online as a music note along with details of the song). Unfortunately, those sharing your viNe can't listen to the song, for obvious reasons, so this leaves me wondering how useful this really is... nonetheless it's kind of cool I suppose!

After installing viNe and loading for the first time, you'll be prompted to enter your Nokia Sports Tracker account user/PW pair - this gives you access to the service to upload and store your media. Walking through the setup (I just loaded a new, public release of the application on a Nokia N95 8GB) you then customize your viNe settings, selecting an avatar to associate with yourself and setting your default access point for media upload and connectivity to the web service. You then select the "record" button to start recording your journey, optionally broadcasting live or uploading to the service when completed.

Select an icon to customize view

Grid view of your media within viNe

Viewing yourself on the map

While using the application, users can jump back in/out of the application, seeing their journey as its being recorded, your little avatar appears at your location on the map and icons show where you've recorded and saved media to share on your viNe. The application now sports an optional grid view where you can scroll through your recorded media prior to upload. Once you're journey is complete, under the Options you can stop recording and then you'll be prompted to either save and upload your journey, or you can optionally upload it to the service at a later time - perhaps you don't want to share it yet! When uploading you can select only certain media to upload or you can elect to share everything collected along the journey. Then you assign tags (I add my location, Windsor, Colorado, and username gisuser), a very nice feature I like is that the application stores previous tags, allowing you to select from a list of previously used tags... nice touch! Once the tags are selected and entered you're on your way as the viNe along with media are uploaded to the service.

The last piece of the puzzle here is how to share your viNes with others. For me this has been a bit confusing so far as my viNes have not been accessible via the Flash application that Nokia has provided to enable sharing of trips from all the Beta users... i suspect because I entered the Beta program late that my details were either forgotten or missed so I can't share my trips with you - regardless, check out the service online at http://web.nseries.com/nseries/nokiavine/ and you'll get the idea.

Recall that the application is tied to the users Sports Tracker account (See http://sportstracker.nokia.com). Given that, the data you record can be seen within your Sports Tracker dashboard, although that application does not provide for the sharing of your music tracks. I typically prefer to use the Sports Tracker dashboard to edit details of my trips, so withing that application I will assign a description to my saved trip, add descriptions to videos and photos etc... Once your viNe has been uploaded you will find it saves in your dashboard. To share with others you can then embed a widget into your blog.

My Nokia Vines via the Widget:
See below for widget - if the widget does not appear and there's a large blank area, you can see the live widget on this page or over here on this blog. At this time the simple embed html code is a little buggy!

Nokia has made available a nifty widget called the Nseries widget (a seemingly odd name in my mind giving me the impression that as it develops it will be used to share not only your sports tracks and viNes but perhaps other services ??). You can read about the Nseries widget in this article I published a short time ago. Strangely, the Nseries widget was released several months ago, however, it was rolled out very quietly, either that or I was on vacation! Given the fact that I'm a long-time avid Sports Tracker user I find it quite odd that I never even knew about this widget until recently - this is a big OOPS in my mind because this has got to be one of the most heavily requested features of Sports Tracker... the ability to finally share your trips and media with others!
To get the widget simply jump to this location

You then enter your settings to link the widget to your account and then personalize the look and feel with the colors of your choice. The widget is then linked to your Sports Tracker account (ie. enter your username here), if you don't have a Sports Tracker Account yet you'll need to get one. the final step is to select where you plan on embedding the widget. Options include Blogger, Netvibes, iGoogle, PageFlakes, and facebook - ideally I simply would like to have the html code or javascript and the ability to embed on any webpage... a big downer. But wait... as a bonus, if you select the Blogger option and copy the code, you should be able to embed this code into any blog or website... score! Unfortunately I can't seem to embed as a widget into my blog... hopefully official WordPress support will come in the near future - hint!

Long time viNe user, Ms Jen has provided a useful how to tutorial to help you get up and running on viNe - see HERE. You can also see vines from some of the Beta users (my viNes were unfortunately not made available via this area for some reason, unfortunately otherwise I'd eb sharing them with you...) See Flash interface at http://web.nseries.com/nseries/nokiavine/

Nokia Nseries Widget