Yesterday, the folks over at Nokia Betalabs hosted a chat via IRC for techies (like myself) who are interested in innovative and the very latest applications for their mobile devices. Of course, Nokia BetaLabs is Nokia-centric, but don't forget that Samsung, LG, and others and also make Symbian S60-powered phones, and most of the applications should work on those, as well.
I forgot to turn on the logging option in irssi so I am writing from memory. The bulk of the conversation revolved around the planned new website, and what the community would like to see happen with it. Also discussed was the introduction of a reputation system to help encourage participation from members and greater community involvement. I think these are some good ideas. To me, the current betalabs is just barely usable. There are few enough applications, that one can quickly scan what is available, but when you want to zero in on a particular application, what has been said about it, what potential problems might be, it becomes very difficult. For example, Nokia Chat is a more promoted application, and there is quite a bit of information to be gleaned from its page, but the Wellness Diary (one of my favourites) has very little information about it.
Which brings me to another point in the discussion, which was the fact that the BetaLabs, like any other R&D branch of a company, has certain priorities placed upon it. Certain applications are definitely bound for the marketplace, while others are experiments or pet projects of one or two engineers. This does not mean that an experimental project will not become a full supported service. As I understand it, the Sportstracker was originally a pet project by some people that were cycling enthusiasts and has now become a big project, morphing into NokiaVine. The community was pretty unanimous in that it would like to know up front which apps had "push" behind them, and which were more of a "wildcard". Communication is always good, but I do not think they need to go so far as having a fully-detailed and public-facing roadmap at the start of each project. Their resources are thin, and personally I would like to see the apps as early and as often as possible. FOSS philosophy can still find its way into non-open source project, I think.
All in all, it was a very positive discussion, probably too early for any west-coasters out there, and I hope they do this sort of thing more often. Thanks to the Guru for putting this on his handy calendar [ical link].
I forgot to turn on the logging option in irssi so I am writing from memory. The bulk of the conversation revolved around the planned new website, and what the community would like to see happen with it. Also discussed was the introduction of a reputation system to help encourage participation from members and greater community involvement. I think these are some good ideas. To me, the current betalabs is just barely usable. There are few enough applications, that one can quickly scan what is available, but when you want to zero in on a particular application, what has been said about it, what potential problems might be, it becomes very difficult. For example, Nokia Chat is a more promoted application, and there is quite a bit of information to be gleaned from its page, but the Wellness Diary (one of my favourites) has very little information about it.
Which brings me to another point in the discussion, which was the fact that the BetaLabs, like any other R&D branch of a company, has certain priorities placed upon it. Certain applications are definitely bound for the marketplace, while others are experiments or pet projects of one or two engineers. This does not mean that an experimental project will not become a full supported service. As I understand it, the Sportstracker was originally a pet project by some people that were cycling enthusiasts and has now become a big project, morphing into NokiaVine. The community was pretty unanimous in that it would like to know up front which apps had "push" behind them, and which were more of a "wildcard". Communication is always good, but I do not think they need to go so far as having a fully-detailed and public-facing roadmap at the start of each project. Their resources are thin, and personally I would like to see the apps as early and as often as possible. FOSS philosophy can still find its way into non-open source project, I think.
All in all, it was a very positive discussion, probably too early for any west-coasters out there, and I hope they do this sort of thing more often. Thanks to the Guru for putting this on his handy calendar [ical link].
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