The PhoneBoy Blog

Why I Use Share on Ovi

01 Sep 2008

Image via Wikipedia

Matthew Stevens, a.k.a. GadgetVirtuoso gives a few reasons he thinks Share on Ovi is a non-starter. His main complaints center around the fact that it’s an entirely Nokia solution with almost entirely Nokia people using it (i.e. not as diverse of a community).

While I can’t completely discount everything he says here, and you should take what I say with a grain of salt because Nokia pays my mortgage, here’s a couple of things worth pointing out about Share on Ovi that make it worth at least looking at.

It’s Not Just Nokia

While by far the best way to actually get things into Share on Ovi is using the Share Online 3.0 client built into several of the newer Nokia handsets (and downloadable for several others), one does not need a Nokia handset to make use of the service. In fact, for handsets where Share Online 3.0 isn’t an option, you can always send in your picks via email and they automatically go to the right channel. I’ve personally used this and it works well.

Also worth noting is the new, improved, mobile web interface at http://share.ovi.com/mobile. Cetainly don’t need a Nokia mobile phone to use it, or even a high-end mobile phone, but it doesn’t hurt.

Hard To Beat The Price

Free is a hard price to beat. I don’t expect Nokia to go away anytime soon, so I don’t feel like my photos might be at risk of being lost. Not that I keep my only copy of photos or movies on Share on Ovi, I upload only a few of them via the phone.

I Don’t Have As Much Flickr Tie-In

Since I primarily upload photos from my phone “on the go,” I don’t have as much need for the various Flickr third-party apps. I’d like to see some more third-party apps for sure, or at the very least an iPhone plugin for Share on Ovi developed by my comrades at Nokia.

Furthermore, I didn’t have a huge community of people on Flickr following me, at least that weren’t following me some other way. That place isn’t as sticky for me.

Easier To Get Photos Into Blog Posts

One feature I particularly like about Share on Ovi is that it is pretty easy for me to embed pictures I’ve uploaded to Share on Ovi into blog posts I do here on phoneboy.com and other places. They provide both HTML and “forum” type links for both medium and large picture sizes.

In practice, what I do is click in the text area for the one I want, usually the HTML for medium size, copy it to clipboard. I then go into a WordPress post, switch into HTML mode, pasting the forum HTML. I modify the given HTML a little and incorporate it into my blog posting. Note this technique works in other blogging services as well.

Why Do You Use It?

Let’s hear from you folks, why do you use Share on Ovi? Or why not? Post your comments here.