Some Opinions on Share Online 3.0

Last night, I decided to install Share Online 3.0 onto my Nokia N95. In some ways, I’m glad I made this jump and in most ways, it’s truly a step forward. However, there are a few issues.

First thing you’ll notice after you install the app, configure it, and reboot your phone, is the information line in the standby screen. See, Share Online 3.0 can regularly poll your Flickr and Share on Ovi feeds for new pictures as well as comments to the photos. I’ve turned this off while I’m in Ottawa given that my data bill is already going to be astronomical, thanks to the International roaming charges. This status line shows you how many new pictures you’ve uploaded as well as how many new comments are available.

When you go into Share Online 3.0 and select your service, you can get a thumbnail of the last several photos uploaded to your service–in this example, Flickr. In addition to looking at your photos, you can look at your contacts photos and “everyone’s” recent photos as well.

Notice the little “speaking” bubble that the “phone” thumbnail (middle top row in the screenshot on the right). This indicates the photo has a comment. Click on the photo, and you get a UI similar to the camera:

Here you can view and add comments or tag the photo–straight from your phone. You can also visit the web page for the photo, send a link to the photo over email or SMS, and view the photo details.

Now instead of simply uploading photos, you now have the ability to participate in the social aspects surrounding those photos. It, in a sense, extends the “social” aspects of Share on Ovi and Flickr directly to your mobile handset in a way that I find compelling.

Note that the integration with Vox is not quite as comprehensive as it is with Ovi and Flickr. You can post, and it will take you to the relevant Vox web site, but the participation options present with Flickr and Ovi quite simply aren’t there. That’s a shame as it’d be nice to have those options for Vox.

Now I did say there were some issues. First off, you can only have one post “uploading” at a time. It lets you know this, but it’d be nice if it queued it up until the item in-progress is done. Second, it’d be nice if I could post to multiple services at once. Third, and a big problem for me, is that I can no longer test my WordPress posting application since I no longer have the ability to hand define a custom service.

Anyway, I like this new Share Online application.

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Tags: flickr, nokia, online share, ovi, photo sharing, share on ovi, twango, vox Fnord