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Nokia Chat: Location based micro blogging with chat built in, I think

Categories: Nokia
By: , IntoMobile
Thursday, July 10th, 2008 at 5:51 AM

Nokia just launched Chat in their Beta Labs, it’s buggy, but the concept is totally cool. You can watch the video above with my buddy Phil and get ridiculously confused, or you can read my attempt at breaking this down below:

Know what Twitter is? The microblogging service that limits you to 140 characters and asks you “What are you doing?” Nokia Chat allows you set something called a “personal message” that is basically the same thing.

Know what instant messenger is? Of course you do, Nokia Chat has this built in as well.

Why is this different? People use Twitter to chat with each other and to update the world as to what they’re doing, conversations happen in public, and following someone can become a pain in the ass when they’re having a conversation you don’t care about. With Nokia Chat you can use your “personal message” to tell people “What are you doing?” and then use the built in IM capability to have a conversation with people interested in the activity or thought you’re currently experiencing.

What else can Nokia Chat do? Jaiku, if you’re lucky enough to have an S60 phone, has a feature where by you can see where your friends are. Nokia Chat has this feature built in, you can broadcast your location to everyone or you can choose to send your location to people over the instant messaging client.

Is there potential for this to be truly awesome? Yes.

Can I comment more? No, I know too much about the road map.

Point of this blog post? Hopefully make the purpose of this application a bit more clear and to spread the word of course. Feedback is welcome, but please, don’t use the comments in this blog post, tell the people who are working on this program directly by leaving a comment in this blog post on Beta Labs.

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • Nÿco

    Maybe the most important fact from this news software, is the fact that it’sinteroperable with XMPP (Jabber), like Twitter and Jauku are.

    Nÿco

  • olly

    Nyco or Stefan: Since it’s XMPP compatible I’m assuming that at some point the procedure for hooking it up to gtalk could be established? That alone is a great development, a free Chat app that would work with gtalk reasonbly well would be great — the maps only add to the fun.

    Once my operator decides to give me internet access back on my N95 I’ll have to give it a whirl!

    -olly

  • Chad

    it’s not bad, my name on it is nseriesaddict chat me up, I’m just working.