Ovi

Way back when, before we had things like iTunes, Nokia created a Web portal to let owners of its phones download snippets of music known as ringtones. Turned out to be a pretty brilliant idea, but Nokia spend more time with unhappy operators than anything.
Well, now they are back with Ovi (Finnish for "the door")! Ovi is a gateway to music, photos, maps, and other content will be available starting later this year. It will initially start in Europe (very cool, because Vodafone just expanded their mobile broadband bandwidth!) and Asia, and will hit the US hopefully later this year.
According to Business Week, this time around, mobile operators may be willing to join in. The scheme includes an online music store rivaling Apple's iTunes, aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at the 200 million music-capable Nokia mobile phones already on the market. It also features an interactive multiplayer game service accessible to the 40 million Nokia Nseries phones now in use. And early next year, Nokia will add a service that lets consumers swap personal photos, videos, and audio. Awesome, especially when thinking about how 38 out of 100 phones on this planet are Nokias.
(tk)