Traveling Geeks

Nokia’s Ovi Maps for Mobile and Web

As part of our prep for London, we met with the Nokia Ovi Maps team late last month to learn a bit more about their mobile and web apps. Ovi maps allow you to see the world in new ways with 3D, satellite and terrain views, weather, information and more.

Features include collections, which allow you to collect and store your favorite routes or destinations for quick and easy access. You can also search for new places from restaurants to remote towns and the service helps you with routing prior to your trip as well as navigation on-the-ground.

You can do all your pre-planning on the desktop if you’d like, save your favorites into collections, and then sync up with your mobile device so you can later navigate using the same information when you arrive at your final destination.

They currently have 216 cities worldwide and 30 landmarks per city. “If you do a really deep dive into the maps, you may not really want to see labels, but its something you can turn on and off easily depending on your preference,” said Berlin-based Jörg Malang, head of Ovi Maps for Nokia.

There’s also a very cool terrain view which gives you views of mountains and landscape.

Maps 3.0, the latest version, which came out in the first quarter of this year, includes hi-resolution satellite and terrain maps in 2D and 3D views and you can walk with enhanced pedestrian routing and features.

You can download updated maps for free anytime from over the 200 countries and of those 200, roughly 74 are navigable today (meaning you can do real-time pedestrian and car navigation in those countries).

You can also share locations with your friends but you can’t yet export or have multiple profiles, that is if you don’t want those two profiles to be synced with each other. Sharing features are coming in the not too distant future however.

How one company uses Web 2.0 tools to run and promote their business

Everyone wants to be more efficient, productive, and successful. We’re constantly seeking advice on Lifehacker. We gravitate toward any post entitled “How to …” or “Top tips to …” And we’re feeding self-help book publishers who dominate 25 percent of the publishing market.

Rarely, though, do we get an opportunity to see one person or one organization completely open up the kimono and show us step by step how they deploy all of these time and cost saving techniques to actually run their business. (more…)

Backstage Pass- Introducing Susan Bratton

As if managing to publish 40+ podcasts at Personal Life Media weren’t enough, Susan Bratton is totally a bundle of energy. (In fact, maybe that’s her secret.) She’s no stranger to tech, having worked in the semiconductor industry, but her personal podcast DishyMix (now at 100 episodes) is focused on marketing and she does the most fascinating interviews, digging down deep to find out what makes each of her interview subjects really “tick.”

Susan says “Our mantra is ‘frank talk and deep discussion for your personal life.’ ” And Personal Life Media’s tag line is “Podcasts and blogs with expert advice on personal growth, anti-aging, intimacy and relationships.” You can tell that Susan is going to have a great time in the UK and we invite you to follow along!

TweetUp planned for 5th July in London with The Conversation Group

This photo, taken at the Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco, is of JD Lasica and Susan Bratton, two of the Traveling Geeks headed to London this July. We are meeting with Ted Shelton (front) and Chris Thomas (back) of The Conversation Group.

Ted is spearheading a TweetUp for the Traveling Geeks, the Conversation Group and social media Twitterers in the UK.

Mark your calendar and DM @SusanBratton if you’d like to be notified of the time and location for this TweetUp (likely at 5 pm on 5 July 2009).

Your backstage pass

Before, during and after the Traveling Geeks visit the UK in July, I will be interviewing, recording, and having discussions with the geeks about what motivates them, turns them on, and is ultimately rewarding to them about their lives as journalists, travelers and tech-heads.

We’ll start with some pre-trip Q/A and then while we’re in the UK you’ll see much more – kind of a backstage pass – about how the trip is going and what the geeks are experiencing. To do this, we’ll be recording using solid-state high-definition cameras, editing each day, and uploading via wireless.

At the moment it looks like the little FlipMinoHD cameras will be our vehicle(s) to record the backstage segments. I’ve been doing both audio and video interviews for a few years, and believe me, having a tiny camera that you can slip in your pocket, that doesn’t require tape, and uploads to the computer in seconds via USB, is a real treat! I was even out on the ski slopes today with one of these in my hand, recording my fellow skiiers while I was also flying down the runs…and it worked well.

Questions? Ideas? Let us know.

Traveling Geeks kickoff meeting

Here are two great shots of some of our traveling geeks including JD Lasica, Jeff Saperstein, Robert Scoble, Jim “Sky” Schuyler and myself, Susan Bratton.

In San Francisco the other day we were planning our day and night events, trying to figure out how we can meet as many companies, entrepreneurs and UK companies in the social media, open source, consumer technology and media world as possible in our all too short trip.

This march in London I support – the right to vote

Last year I wrote a very heated and controversial post about an anti-crime march that was held in London. I was a bit confused about the action and that people abroad should come home and fight for their country.

This year on December 6th 2008 South Africans living in London will gather to march for […]