Symbian in Motion

Share Online 3.0 - Fresh From Nokia Beta Labs

Nokia Beta Labs has just released a new beta app that has most definitely peaked my interest. With all of the problems that people have using ShoZu, we are certainly in need of a good alternative and Nokia looks to be aiming to give us one with Share Online 3.0.

This app has some great features and sports a pretty nice UI in certain sections but it seems to be in relatively early stages. That very fact however, is exactly why Nokia Beta Labs is a great concept (and one that many developers take advantage of). Users get an early peak at upcoming apps along with that warm fuzzy feeling of being one of the first people to use a new app. Nokia gets free development guidance and a better idea of what their potential users are looking for. Win/win!

Share Online 3.0 potentially allows you to share your media via a variety of services/blogs/etc. Initially the app supports sharing via Flickr, ikibis and Vox. As opposed to being a mere sharing facility, Share Online is more of a portal that allows you to interact with a sharing service. With Flickr for example you can view your photos along with photos posted by your contacts and even those flowing through the public stream. You can view details, view or add comments and even subscribe to new contacts.

Sharing is organized a bit better than the Share It portion of ShoZu in my opinion, and everything is done on one screen. Enter a title for your image along with a description and tags. You can then alter the visibility settings of your image if you choose, and initiate your upload.

There are two issues that I’ve already come across in this area of the app. The first is a bug - when preparing my first upload to Flickr from my N95-3 the app would not allow me to add any new tags (’Add New’ on the left soft key does nothing). Since your tag list starts off empty this means that you cannot tag your photos at all. (EDIT: tag issue solved with a reboot - see comments) The second issue is more of an annoyance. ShoZu affords you the luxury of marking one or several items for upload and then performing those uploads in the background even after you exit the app. I think that this is a necessity for apps of this nature but Share Online does not allow this in its current state.

This app is definitely worth playing with and certainly has the potential to replace ShoZu as it is refined and more services are supported. Since my use of ShoZu is limited to Flickr uploads and the occasional Vox post, I would uninstall ShoZu right now if tags were working for me and background uploads were supported. I should note that the only supported devices currently listed on the beta page are the N73 and the N95. If you have one of those devices you should definitely head over and check it out! Then try to help me figure out why the app is labeled as “Pub” instead of Share Online in your menu… ;) Ok, after another reboot the app is now properly listed in my menu as “Share online”. Why is this app messing with me? :)

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