Today Nokia and T-Mobile USA announced the Nokia Nuron, which is the Nokia 5230, a Symbian 5.0 device with a 3.2-inch resistive touchscreen, 3G connectivity and a full HTML browser. This device will have Ovi Maps and Ovi Store preloaded and will be available in a few weeks for $69.99 on a two year contract.

From a developer's perspective this is great news as Ovi Store on the Nokia Nuron will support both operator and credit-card billing.  So if you want to sell your application or game to US consumers, Nokia Nuron users will be able to purchase content and have the charges appear on their monthly statement.

If you're a developer you can get more technical details about the device and how to develop applications and games on Forum Nokia.


For those of you who are already an Ovi Publisher and have an existing application or game already available in Ovi Store for one of the other five Symbian 5.0 devices (N97, N97 mini, 5800 XpressMusic, 5530 XpressMusic, X6), you can add the 5230 to your device distribution and make sure you have US selected for country distribution. This way Nokia Nuron users will be able to find and download/purchase your content.

For those of you keeping track, Ovi Store continues to grow and these latest stats indicate an on-going upward trend for downloads and other metrics.  Here are the latest stats for Ovi Store as of the 28th of February:

Downloads
We're seeing around 1.5 million downloads a day through Ovi Store, which is around 22 downloads per second, 24/7, with daily highs of 1,300 downloads per minute. Another detail is on average, each registered user has downloaded (12) items from Ovi Store since the launch.
 
Availability
With support for 30 language variations, 90% of Ovi Store visitors are using their local language when available.  Additionally new users and downloads are up in February more than 100% month-on-month from January. The top downloading countries from Ovi Store in alphabetical order are: France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UK & Vietnam.

Devices
More than 100 devices are supported, 60+ of them Symbian, and the most prominent devices were all touch models: N97, N97 mini, 5800 XpressMusic, and 5530 XpressMusic.

Publishers
With publishers from more than 80 countries distributing their content through Ovi Store, it's a great way for Nokia users in all parts of the world to find something they're looking for.  Recently Polarbit and Nimbuzz have both passed 1 million downloads for their games and app.  The Forum Nokia Ovi Publishers Successes blog has other other application success stories from publishers around the world.

Leave any comments if you have questions and I'll answer them.  Make sure you check out our Publishing to Ovi info page for more information about becoming a publisher for Ovi Store.

There have been some questions from developers recently about what types of content are permitted in Ovi Store and I wanted to share our guidelines with you. These are the guidelines that are posted in our web based publishing tool and support page for registered Ovi Publishers:

The following items are examples of prohibited content:

• Paid content that circumvents Nokia's billing platform
• Content containing copyrighted material you are not authorized to use
• Content containing nudity, pornography or sexually explicit material
• Content with graphic or gratuitous violence
• Content containing ethnic propaganda or other offensive material which attacks or demeans a group or an individual
• Content disparaging governments or politicians
• Content showing minors in an exploitative or abusive light
• Content showing cruelty to animals
• Content showing distressing content
• Content that encourages illegal, dangerous or harmful activities
• Content that contains viruses or harmful code
• Content that links to websites that contain illegal or inappropriate material
• Content promoting drugs or drug paraphernalia
• Content promoting tobacco or tobacco-related products
• Content promoting prostitution
• Content and related policies that disrespects a user's right of privacy

In addition, please keep the following privacy guidelines in mind if your content accesses an end-user's location information:

• Provide users with clear and understandable notice about how their location information will be collected, used, disclosed and protected
• Provide users with tools that enable them to determine and control whether, when, and with whom their information is shared
• Provide, as appropriate, parental controls and child protection tools for users under 18 years of age and their parents or guardians
• Adhere to industry standards regarding the transmission, storage, and access to sensitive personal information like location information

Also please be aware, for content published for use on the AT&T network and devices, here are some tips that can ensure your application meets their requirements:

• Applications should use less than 10Mb per user/per month
• The provider should manage socket connections effectively, which means the maximum time should be 30 minutes
• Additionally, the provider should use ports appropriately or register non-standard use of ports with IANA
• Provider should leave a reasonable length of time before re-trying a request to allow for network latency
• Applications should send no more than 20 messages an hour

Leave any comments if you still have questions.

The Ovi Store newsletter is sent weekly to registered Ovi Store users around the world to promote applications that have been developed by Ovi Publishers from around the world.

If you're already a registered user of Ovi Store and opted in to receive notifications then you're discovering weekly recommendations from the Ovi Store team delivered to your inbox with links and info to featured applications.  Above is a screen shot from last weeks email blast.

For those of you that are registered Ovi Store users and aren't receiving this newsletter you'll need to simply go into your Ovi user account settings and check the "I'd like to be contacted via e-mail". That's it.


If you have a Nokia device and aren't yet using Ovi Store you can quickly register to create an account and then be able to download free or for a fee, applications and content.

The Ovi Store newsletter is delivered in English in all countries except where there is a localized version of Ovi Store available.

Here are the latest stats related to Ovi Store and wanted to share these with everyone. One of the stats I'd like to point out is Ovi Store now supports mobile billing with 60 operators in 18 countries. This means that consumers in these countries that are using one of these operators can purchase content from Ovi Store and they will see the charge on their monthly billing statement.

• We're seeing over a million downloads a day through Ovi Store.
• On average, each registered user has downloaded almost (12) items from Store since the launch of the service.
• New users are up in Jan more than 100% month-on-month from Dec.
• Downloads are up in Jan more than 100% month-on-month from Dec.
• Publishers from more than 80 countries are distributing their content through Ovi Store.
• Ovi Store is localized into 30 language variations:
• Canadian French
• Czech
  
• Danish
• Dutch
• English (UK & US)
• Finnish
• French
• German
• Greek
• Hungarian
• Indonesian
  
• Italian
• Malay
  
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese (Standard & Brazilian)
• Romanian
• Russian
• Simplified Chinese
• Spanish (Spain & Latin America)
  
• Swedish
• Thai
• Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong & Taiwan)
• Turkish
• Ukrainian
• Vietnamese
• 60 operators in 18 countries support integrated mobile billing with Ovi Store:
• Australia: Singtel Optus, Telstra, Vodafone (3)
• Austria: H3G, Orange, T-Mobile (3)
• Denmark: TDC, Sonofon, Telia, H3G (4)
• Finland: DNA, Elisa, Saunalahti, Sonera (4)
• France: SFR, Bouygues Telecom, Orange (3)
• Germany: T-Mobile, Vodafone, Debitel, E-Plus, Mobilcom (5)
• Ireland: Meteor, Vodafone, O2, H3G (4)
• Italy: Vodafone, Wind (2)
• Netherlands: KPN, T-Mobile, Telfort, Vodafone, Tele2 (5)
• Norway: Netcom, Telenor, Tele2 (3)
• Poland: Era, Orange, Play, Plus (4)
• Russia: MTS, Beeline (2)
• Singapore: Starhub (1)
• Spain: Vodafone, Orange, Movistar (3)
• Sweden: H3G, Tele2, Telenor, Telia (4)
• Switzerland: Orange, Swisscom, Sunrise (3)
• UK: Virgin, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, H3G, O2 (6)
• USA: AT&T (1)

If you're not already an Ovi publisher for Ovi Store, you can visit our publisher info page for more details about how to get started, the opportunity and other related information.

Questions- please leave a comment here and I'll reply.

2009 has sure gone by quickly and being mid-November, 2010 is rapidly approaching. For those of you who are mobile developers or are following the various mobile application stores available in market I thought I would give another update regarding Ovi Store and where we are since we launched about 5 months ago. The following stats are from 26 May through 31 October:

• Available on over 100 different Nokia devices (60+ Symbian S60 devices)
• Active users from over 180 countries
• Developers from 65 countries are distributing content
• 8 countries today have local content, local language support and mobile billing: UK, Spain, France, Germany, Singapore, Australia, Italy, Russia. By the end of Q1 2010 there will be more than 20 countries.
• Top 10 Ovi Store Markets by performance in alphabetic order: Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Russia & UK
• In almost all of the top 10 Ovi Store countries, 5800 XpressMusic and N97 are the #1 and  #2 devices for Ovi Store activity and consumer engagement
• Redownload now available and search is much improved, more details (http://tinyurl.com/yf9tmbd)
• Ovi Store will ship embedded on most new compatible Nokia devices including Symbian S60 and Series 40 from Q4 2009
• On average, each registered user has downloaded at least 8 items from Ovi Store
• In October, the number of content items downloaded was over 70% higher than in Sept.

If you have a Nokia device and you want to download or enhance your device, visit store.ovi.com to browse for content and applications. Or even if you don’t have a Nokia device you can visit Ovi Store and browse through all of the great applications and content that Nokia users in over 180 countries are downloading and purchasing on a daily basis.

Any questions please leave them here and I'll reply.

Forum Nokia just posted a podcast where I talked about key developer news including new devices, platform opportunities, and updated Ovi Store statistics. You can listen to it on the page, download the MP3 or download from iTunes.

There are other podcasts that we post every few weeks so if you're interested in hearing the latest developer news make sure to bookmark this page, or subscribe to the Forum Nokia podcasts in iTunes.

Finally getting around to sharing this.  You can download my "Prospering with Ovi Store" presentation that I gave at Nokia World a few weeks go.  These slides provide an update on where we are with Ovi Store and covers some of the areas we're focusing on moving forward. Ovi Store has been live for a little more than three months and we're seeing a lot of positive things from publishers and consumers.

I may post this on SlideShare at some point but posting it here for now so those interested can view today.

This weekend both Ovi Store and the Ovi Publishing tool will be down for several hours.

If you're a consumer, Ovi Store will be unavailable Saturday, August 15 from 2pm EST until 6pm EST. This applies to Ovi Store access via mobile device and/or PC. We thank you for your patience as we continue to make the best content available to consumers globally.

If you're a developer, the Ovi Publish team is continually looking to improve the Ovi publishing tool for Ovi Store and as part of this process the team will be undergoing a routine maintenance break. From 2pm EST this Saturday, August 15 through 2pm EST Sunday, August 16, the publishing tool will be unavailable and Ovi publishers won’t be able to log-in. If you’re planning on using the Ovi publishing tool this weekend please plan accordingly. If you have any questions about this service break please contact Publisher Support.

Some people have asked "how is Ovi Store doing" and I thought I'd share the following metrics with you.  These data points are from the launch (26 May) through 8 June.

• Nokia consumers from 152 countries have visited Ovi Store
• Ovi Store is accessible from over 75 Nokia devices in 5 languages
• Ovi Store has mobile billing from 27 operators from around the world
• Applications category is #1 among free items and games is #1 within premium content
• PhotoTwister is #1 app in volume and Gravity is #1 app in revenue
• Top countries for downloading in alphabetical order are: Germany, Italy, Spain, UK and USA

As you probably have heard by now, we've launched Ovi Store globally and you can take a look at all of the available applications and content. If you have a PC you can go to http://store.ovi.com in your web browser and get a sense for the types of content, or you can go to store.ovi.com on your Nokia phone's mobile browser.

Given that this is the first day for Ovi Store and the immense amount of interest in Ovi Store from around the world, earlier today we experienced a huge spike in traffic and we're working as quickly as possible to improve things and will keep the community updated.

To help give you a sense of some of the cool apps available in Ovi Store, one of my colleagues Chanse Arrington at Nokia recorded some videos showing three applications: Qik, Gravity and BuddyCloud. Watch these videos to get a sense of what the applications can do and how to get them for your Nokia device through Ovi Store.

Qik

or watch on YouTube.
Learn more about Qik in Ovi Store.


Gravity

or watch on YouTube.
Learn more about Gravity in Ovi Store.

BuddyCloud

or watch on YouTube.
Learn more about BuddyCloud in Ovi Store.

With the launch of Ovi Store happening by the end of this month, I thought it would be good to share with the community examples of the types of reporting Ovi Publishers will get once Ovi Store goes live.

What you see here is a mock-up report showing some of the types of information that will be visible to an Ovi Publisher.  Note: the application name and data is all dummy information and is just used for visual purposes.



Some examples of the types of reporting that will be available to Ovi Publishers includes:
- daily metrics for each content item: downloads by device, country
- daily metrics for the publisher: downloads by device, country, estimated revenue
- total estimated revenue for publisher
- historical monthly reports

If you're an Ovi Publisher then when you log-in to your account you'll notice if you click on the "reports" tab you should see some basic information.  For those of you who aren't yet Ovi Publishers, you can register here.

Any questions, leave a comment and I'll answer.

A few weeks ago at the Nokia Developer Summit I talked about the opportunity for developers with Ovi Store and the benefits with publishing to Ovi. You can listen to the podcast here, or if you prefer you can download the MP3 and listen on your favorite device.

There are also two other podcasts available if you're interested:

"Cross-Platform Development" with Mika Rytkonen
- listen
- download MP3

"Future of Social Location" with Michael Halbherr
- listen
- download MP3

There's been some questions by developers asking about what type of applications and content will be accepted by Ovi Store by publishers and thought it would be helpful to share our content guidelines with you. These content guidelines are also available in the help section of the publish to Ovi intake system (that registered publishers have access to).

Here are some examples of prohibited content:

• Content that is neither free or using Nokia's billing platform 
• Copyrighted material you are not authorized to use 
• Pornography, nudity, or sexually explicit 
• Graphic or gratuitous violence 
• Ethnic propaganda or other offensive material which attacks or demeans a group or an individual
• Media showing minors in an exploitative or abusive light 
• Cruelty to animals 
• Distressing content 
• Encourages illegal, dangerous or harmful activities 
• Files that contain viruses or harmful code 
• Linking to websites that contain illegal or inappropriate material

If you have any additional questions you can post them in our publishing to Ovi discussion board on Forum Nokia.com.

Additionally if you haven't already yet registered to be a publisher for Ovi you can do it here.