cell Archives - TheWayoftheWeb

Is the Nokia N97 the ultimate geek phone? You might need to stick with me for a moment while I explain…

So it’s pretty clear that the consumer smartphone market and awareness belongs to the Apple iPhone 3GS, while the business market is owned primarily by RIM’s Blackberry. (For an interesting discussion of the current statistics framed as an examination of Nokia, check out Tomi T Ahonen’s recent posts, particularly this one.)

Meanwhile the flood on Android phones is increasing in pace – the current HTC Hero is about to be joined by a positive plethora of handsets from Samsung, Motorola, HTC and many others.

So the iPhone has pretty much jumped the shark into mainstream awareness, the Blackberry marks you as someone who is emailing at 2am and doesn’t do anything else, and to be able to have geek cred on Android will mean swapping handsets every month and relying on the phone equivalent of trainspotters to recognise what you’re using.

Enter the N97.

It’s got good hardware – 5.0 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, video capture, GPS, Wifi, Bluetooth, etc, etc.

But more importantly, the operating system takes time to learn (and indeed to operate!). It’s not easy to use, some things don’t work, and the Ovi Store has problems which have been discussed at length by consumers and developers.

And that’s what makes it the ultimate geek phone.

Ultimate geek stuff isn’t mass market, easy to use, or without character. I’m a big fan of Ubuntu, but I struggle to recommend it to a lot of people, and I’m not alone, due to some simplicity needed for everyday consumers. The same thing applies to Open Office, Gimp, and hand coding everything from scratch.

A while ago Robert Scoble asked on Twitter whether anyone could name someone in their geek circle who actually had an N97. I immediately thought of James Whatley and Corvida, both of whom are more credible phone geeks than me.

So here’s to the N97 and to geek cred for things which require more effort, persistance and curiousity to use than the average person has time or patience for.

So far, much of the focus on microblogging has been on text, with the one major exception of Seesmic. But using Seesmic as a producer requires a certain amount of effort. It also lends itself to video blog type discussions.

Hence interest around the private alpha launch of 12 Seconds, limiting video uploads in the same manner as Twitter and Plurk et al limit the amount of text.

Updates are by webcam or mobile phone, and there’s no scientific reasoning disclosed behind the 12 second limit, although apparently “Our patent pending Electro-Tear-Duct Prongers have determined that exactly 12 seconds of video is the ideal amount of time to keep anything interesting.”

What is also quite interesting is that the people behind 12 Seconds are open about: “The more we can get 12seconds off of the 12seconds.tv site the better. We are building a platform for video status. We want these clips to be anywhere you are, or at least anywhere you want them to be.” So widgets are already available for Myspace and blogs, and more distribution is doubtless on the way…

It’s worth taking a look to see how much information can be conveyed in 12 seconds via video. My only question about the service is that it successfully replicates the upload portion of microblogging – but are there mechanisms for replying to people, and forming groups? Those are the things that have driven Twitter, Friendfeed and all the famous social networks. If I see 12 seconds that are worthy of praise, comment or argument, I want to be able to respond directly via the service – not have to track people down by alternative means.

Take a look at the site, and share your thoughts below…

The Nokia N97: The ultimate geek phone?

New video microblogging in 12seconds.tv