Here we are in LA. After three and a half hours of flying I arrived in LA for the WOM World LA Party. After arriving to hotel the rooms were not read yet so I had to wait a short while. Since I have not met anyone in person I had no clue who to look for… but after entering the lobby it did not take long to spot my fellow geeks and geekettes. Donna threw a warm hug to welcome me and at the same time I got a chance to meet the rest of the gang…a total of about 30 people from websites all over the web….the famous Darla, Ricky, Howard Forums gang, Nokia Users and more. I will post the list at the end of post. It’s nice to be surrounded by a crowd that shares the same hobby as you do…and it’s funny to see everyone reach for their phones when Nokia jingle emerges from someone’s pocket. For now the set of photos on Flickr has only a few shots but after tonight’s extravaganza party I will post more. Stand by for more
So let’s start from the beginning… again big THANKS to Nokia and WOM World for inviting me to the event. All of my friends were asking me who did I sleep with to pull this off…this proves that it’s good to be a geek :-)
Upon arrival in LA at noon on Thursday, September 27th I took the shuttle bus to Crowne Plaza Beverly Hills. Everything was paid for…Shuttle transportation, hotel, meals. When I arrived to hotel my room was not ready yet so I had about two hours to kill. I went out for a second but then returned to the hotel. I saw a group of people in hotel’s bar lounge so I approached them and asked if they were a part of the WOM crowd. Donna jumped up and threw her arms around me for a big and warm welcome. First impression was well…impressive. I got a chance to meet with part of the crowd (Jeremiah, Ricky, Darla, Mark, Mr. Thoughtfix :-), Jonathan and more..sorry but I’m bad with names). Later on we all had a quick bite and a short introduction to the world courtesy of Mr. Thoughtfix and YouTube :-) (By the way.. I hold the rights to the Geekapalooza 2007 LOL )
At 6.15 pm we all gathered downstairs for the trip to Nokia Mansios with the crowd of around 30 people (all courtesy of WOM / Nokia). Upon arrival at the mansion we were hauled in N95 Golf carts which were playing N95 Moby theme (which I like quite a lot). The Nokia Mansion was a shocker…beautiful place to mingle and connect. Once there, Nokia took care of everything…hors d’oeuvres, live DJ, plenty of sitting room, goodie bags, and a LOT of people (more than expected as said by the organizers). N95’s were all over the place. Not too long ago I was writing about Sling player for S60 and that I signed up for the beta test for US release. I e-mailed sling not too long ago but everything was hush hush. Well it seems like Nokia and Sling partnered together for the N95 US launch and Sling player for Symbian release as one room at the mansion was dedicated strictly to Sling / N95 play time. Sling player was released on the 27th so I downloaded it immediately on my N95 and got a chance to play a bit with it. It’s SO SO over T-Mobile’s EDGE (I own the Euro version of N95 so I’m stuck with EDGE only). However at the mansion everything was running via WiFi and it ROCKED. I assume it will be a very similar experience on N95 US version on at&t’s UMTS. Mind you that all N95’s at the event were the US edition except the N95 8GB which is a BEAUTY with larger screen. An absolute drool causing toy. The speed of the OS was VERY noticeably better as both units have double RAM of the original euro version and the battery rocks. I did not see any device plugged in to the charger and believe me when I say that they were abused…yet most had only two bars gone from the battery indicator. AMAZING. I wanted to play with N95 a bit but some jerk put a lock code on the device so the display model in the main room was only as good as without battery since we could not do much on it (Look at the pics in my flickr set). Next was N81…music oriented phone. That device shows a MAJOR effort in the design. The slider no longer feels cheap and the sliding mechanism is all metal. There’s a slight barely noticeable “wobble” of the screen but that’s the design - if it was too tight - the slider would not open. Again the speed of the UI was on par with N95 US and 8GB edition - very fast. The camera is 2MP which is sufficient for a casual (ok…I’m spoiled now with 5MP on N95 :-) photo shoots.
After some browsing WOM world folks (Donna and Frank) took us geeks for a semi private Q&A session. If you browse other blogs (symbian-guru.com, darlamack.com, thenokiablog.com and others) you can hear the questionsthat were asked but basically other bloggers were asking Bill Plummer, Vice President, Nokia, Multimedia Sales & Channel Management, North America, questions such as “why does N95 Euro battery sucks”, or “Why is Nokia USA service center so BAD” and why Nokia doesn’t offer worldwide warranty coverage. I on the other hand had another question…. I’m not the kind of user that would ditch my favourite network, T-Mobile, for at&t just because N95 US works on them so instead after the official Q&A session was over I asked if Nokia plans to release yet another variant of N95 US which would be good for T-Mobile 1700 Mhz UMTS frequency. With a GREAT disappointment I was told that there are no plans for such device. It makes me think though, since Nokia has the specs for T-Mob’s UMTS why not release the device now even though the network is not live yet. I’d buy it in a flash and I’m sure others would too so why fragment already fragmented market. But hopefully there will be another iPhone killer or N95 follow-up that will be even better.
Later on everyone mingled, talked, exchanged ideas, played…yes…played. This was also a promo event for the upcoming N-Gage gaming platform for Nokia devices. The games presented were quite nice and I had a short moment with the platform…a type of online store to get all the entertainment-related goodies onto your phones. One disappointment was the fact that most if not all of us were expecting a secret launch of some kind of new device. Well…this did not happen :-( It seems this event was all about “Connecting” described by Bill Plummer. There were a few mentions of retail distribution representatives present at the event and I got a feeling this event was VERY much about California and Nokia looking VERY closely at that market (both in the way of partnership with fashion and entertainment industry) as well as the size and population which makes it a nice target. The party was also a blast in another way…the geeky way…you could order drinks from Nokia’s N800 internet tablets, which were relayed to the bartender and then you’d just pick up your drinks. The hostesses at the event were very friendly, mingled with everyone and were fun to talk to. The only bad part about it was that they did not seem too well informed about the capabilities of the device. It was almost like going to Best Buy and asking some high school kid for help with picking an HD Tv…he would be clueless but cool at the same time. This was the feeling I got. One very nice hostess for example told me that until that day she’s never heard of N95 but she liked the device. I had to tell her about all the features of the device as she revealed that she was Blackberry user. I asked her to allow me to guess… Pearl…. She was surprised I guessed. Besides this the party was a blast and a VERY nice way for Nokia to treat bloggers.
After this party I am proud to say that I am a devoted Nokia user - this is a company that besides using bloggers as a free form of publicity, also closely monitors their inputs and comments and doesn’t just let it fly by like some kind of empty comment but instead listens and implements.
Next morning we all gathered for breakfast and chat about gizmos, gadgets, toys and everything geek. Scrambled eggs have never tasted so good before. After the breakfast Donna did a quick impromptu interview with everyone around the table asking for their opinion, likes and dislikes about the whole event which was recorded on nothing else than N95. I’m sure it will be posted on WOM world website sometime soon.
Later on it was a quick trip to Beverly Hills (walking distance), a few photos on Rodeo Drive and back to hotel for good byes and departure. I was sad to leave as I had a lot of fun at the event. I got a chance to meet “blog world” celebrities who are one hell of a fun group. Huge thanks again to Nokia and WOM World for inviting me to the event.
I have been blogging for only a few months on the internet but for a long time a certain individual with a great ideas has been my “Hyde Park” where I can offload my ideas and have a great and challenging conversation. This individual is my good friend, Dr. Patrick Duparcq. I have known Patrick for over 10 years now and for as long as I can remember, he has always been ahead of time with his ideas and suggestions. Dr. Duparcq has worked for many universities, conducted many business and technology seminars all over the world and currently is teaching courses at Kellog School of Business at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Just click on this link to find some websites about Dr. Duparcq Read more… With GREAT pleasure I’d like to announce that Patrick is joining Our blog as an editor. I’m sure we will be seeing a lot of great posts from him which will challenge everyone into great conversations. Once again welcome aboard.
Today (09/21/2007) Nokia Beta Labs announced the availability of Conversation application which is a threaded texting application for S60. I immediately installed it and I have to say I like what I’m seeing so far. It’s integrated nicely into the native contacts (for some weird reason… I’d see it personally as an additional option under the messaging menu rather than contacts). It adds a tab in the contacts menu allowing you to skip between Contacts, Conversation and Groups tabs. Originally I purchased ThreadedSMS application but disappointingly I have to say that I used it only a few times as the application had a weird “feature” of triggering a message received sound when I was sending the message out which became quite annoying after a while so I stopped using it. Nokia’s application on the other hand works very transparently and the feeling of native application would not be there since the look of it would be different. There’s not much that can be said about this little add on at this point except that it works fine and we will have to wait for the next version that will come out. One another good thing is the fact that most likely it will be implemented in the future releases/updates to S60. Below are two shots of the chat screens.
This is the shot of all conversations
And here's a shot of an individual thread
Yippie… It’s good to be pampered. I wrote a few posts ago that I received N800 for testing from WOM World. Well, about a week and a half ago I received an e-mail from the good folks at WOM to join the fun at Nokia sponsored even in LA. I was shocked to see that I received the invite considering the fact that my blog is very young and there isn’t much on it. Maybe it was the problem I had with N80 in the past and Nokia felt my pain, maybe it was the fact that I attended Nokia event in Chicago, or maybe because I simply tested the device and liked it? I guess I will never know. One thing I know is that I sure will enjoy the playground. Since I got a brand new laptop, I will tag it along with me and will post some updates from the event. It will be so much fun to see all geeks such as myself toting their Nokia N95’s and others right at the even and snapping the pictures just so they can be uploaded on the spot to their blogs. It will be nice to see all the people I did not get a chance to meet during the Chicago event and talk about things that make us go Hmmmmm…… (get your minds out of the gutter you perverts… I meant gadgets)
…so little time… I have been slacking off for the past few weeks and have not posted anything. Yet so many events and things happened. Mainly the release of US version of N95, then the N95-8GB, N81, OVI etc etc. There’s not much more I can say about them that has not already been said by other bloggers. Am I jealous of the upgraded devices? Partially yes and partially no. Yes for the fact that N95’s now have more operating memory which makes them even faster, then the black N95-8GB edition…gorgeous. NO because the US version that was announced is strictly for the 850/1900 WCDMA flavour which is only offered by the evil at&t. If it was 1900/1700 version then I’d be salivating and swearing like there’s no tomorrow but by the time an uber device will be released and will work both on at&t and T-Mobile I will be ready to upgrade anyway.Another event or rather issue that was resolved was the liberation of iPhone from at&t’s claws. My friend was in the market for a device that would have a full keyboard (he loved his Motorola 630 but it died) so he was shopping for something that would allow him to use it as a full messaging device but Sidekick and WM devices were too bulky so he decided to get an iPhone 8GB (after Apple smacked the price down by $200) and immediately removed the sim lock. I got a chance to play with it for a while and I have to say that I’m amazed with the design but completely disgusted with the crippled os. Whenever I tried to do something that seemed natural on N95, look up a contact by typing the name for example…it’s not possible on iPhone. You can only press the letter to get to the list of names starting with that letter (index). Then sending a picture via MMS…again no can do. Contacts for example…if you enter a birth date, it’s not entered in the calendar. You have to manually add it. These were only a few things that I immediately noticed within 5 minutes so in my opinion iPhone SUCKS in the OS department. Rocks in the design. I’ll stick with my Nokia…thank you