Oh and to complicating the naming mess even more, the application is now called Nokia Messaging email. Yeah, email doesn’t not start with a capital “e”.

Here are the screenshots showcasing some of the changes in this release :

The new Gmail icon.

The settings now let you configure whether to show images in the HTML view.

Youtube video embedded in the email.

The ever going naming mess. Is it Email or Nokia Messaging or Nokia Messaging email now?

To download Nokia Messaging on your phone, visit http://email.nokia.com from your computer or your phone.

Thanks to lekovodolaz for breaking the story first on Twitter.

Update 1 : You can now view embedded content from within the mail view. Example : Youtube videos embedded in the email can be viewed from within Nokia Messaging.

Some of the highlights of this release are :

Support for the Nokia N97 and Nokia 6700 classic, with more device support coming

Nokia N97 and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic already have a dedicated Facebook widget. So if you are wondering what is the difference between this release and the Facebook widget, the Betalabs have already addressed the question with this reply :

The current Facebook experience is a client downloaded onto the phone and accessible through a homescreen widget. The experience is focused on consumption of Facebook community content. The Social Messaging beta will deliver a similar, though more integrated experience for Facebook as well as other social network communities through a single client as service extension of Nokia Messaging with one predictable and low price for email, IM and social messaging activity.

Publication is a core part of the social networking experience. Ovi by Nokia services provide a wealth of content ideal for uploading to social communities. The Ovi lifecasting widget allows consumers to post to their Facebook account directly from the homescreen and works great alongside our other social messaging offerings.

You can catch the features & working of this beta in this video introducing the Social Messaging Beta :

Screenshots

As this is a beta, Installing this client on a device other than the Nokia N97 with firmware version 12.X.024 or higher, or Nokia 6700 classic, will not work.

Download : Nokia Messaging with Social Messaging beta

According to the Ovi Lifecasting page on Nokia Betalabs, here is an overview of what Ovi Lifecasting does.

With Ovi, you can now keep your Facebook friends up to date where you are and what you are doing in a new way.
Right from the home screen of your Nokia N97, you can lifecast the street address you are at, and your friends can see your location on a map. You can also share a meaningful location from the nearby places of interest or your favourite place that you have saved on Ovi Maps^Beta. To show your friends what a great spot you are exploring, you can take a photo, and attach it to your Facebook post.

Screenshots

The Ovi Lifecasting widget on the N97’s homescreen.

Location selection options shows that you can broadcast your current location via the GPS or a location from your favorites or any of the places nearby.

The Lifecaster for adding comments along with a status update.

To understand what Ovi Lifecasting actually is all about, watch this Lifecasting with Ovi video from the Nokia Conversation blog :

As this is an early release preview, The download instructions & installation is a little tricky. According to the Betalabs, Here is how you should get started with Ovi Lifecasting on your Nokia N97.

1. Install the latest Ovi Maps^Beta on your Nokia N97.
2. Open Ovi Maps^Beta.
3. Check that you have the map data for the country you are going to lifecast from. You can download the map data with Map Loader or over-the-air (data charges may apply).
4. Download the Ovi lifecasting widget, and add it to the home screen of your Nokia N97. Download (SIS, 1.68Mb). Sign in with your Nokia account and connect with your Facebook Profile.
5. During the setup of the Ovi lifecasting widget, please ensure you select “automatically log in” – otherwise you will not be able to publish (Known issue)
6. Go to the start screen, select Options > Edit Content > Options > Add Content> Ovi Livecaster, then select Done).
7. Start lifecasting. Enter your Facebook status, attach a photo to your post, or select how you want to share your whereabouts. Your Nokia N97 detects your current location through GPS/A-GPS or network positioning.
8. Open your Facebook profile to check what you are lifecasting. To display the latest location you have lifecasted from, select the corresponding link in the status update view. You can also check if your friends have commented on your posts, and keep the conversation going.

For the complete information on how to set up Ovi Lifecasting & the known issues, visit the Download page for Ovi Lifecasting on Nokia Betalabs here : http://betalabs.nokia.com/betas/view/ovi-lifecasting#betadownload

1. Nokia Photo Browser

An experimental photo browser from the Nokia Beta Labs, Nokia Photo Browser makes your viewing experience quick and fun with :

This is still a beta application, but nevertheless, a fun app to browse photo on.

Download – Nokia Photo Browser

2. Nokia Handwriting Calculator

Another release of the Nokia Beta Labs, Handwriting Calculator is a showcase of Nokia’s new handwriting recognition technology. It allows you to calculate handwritten math expressions using the stylus as the writing instrument.

As with the Photo Browser, this an experimental beta too. There might be hiccups, but its simply too cool to not have on your phone.

Download – Nokia Handwriting Calculator

3. Easy Wi-Fi

“Easy Wi-Fi automates connection to the Wi-Fi hotspots you use. No need to use a browser and remember usernames and passwords. Easy Wi-Fi makes it simple and fast to get connected”

Download – Easy Wi-Fi

4. AccuWeather.com WRT Widget

The N97 ships with the AccuWeather.com WRT Widget, but for some reason, instead of the widget being installed on the 32GB mass storage, it is installed on the meager phone memory of the N97. Now you can uninstall the widget from phone memory and install it onto the mass storage, thereby recovering the crucial phone memory.

The best part of the AccuWeather.com widget is that it supports the widget based N97 homescreen, which means that you can set the widget to show the current weather on the homescreen all the time!

Download – AccuWeather.com WRT Widget

5. PixelPipe for Share Online

Liberate your media with Pixelpipe. Upload photos, video, and audio files once through the Pixelpipe Media Gateway and distribute your content across over 100+ social networks, photo/video sites, blogs, and other online services.

Snapped a photo and want to share it with your friends on Facebook as well as your followers on Twitter? How about a 100 other services in one go? Simply send it to PixelPipe which pushes your uploads to the configured services. Download this widget to configure PixelPipe in your N97’s Share Online app to enable one touch uploads to PixelPipe!

Download – PixelPipe for Share Online

6. Nimbuzz

We have already reviewed Nimbuzz here on OviApplications. It is the “One app to IM them all!”

Off all the messenger apps available on the Ovi Store like Palringo, Fring, Eqo, we found Nimbuzz to be the best of the lot.

Chat with your friends on Yahoo!, Windows Live, Facebook, MySpace, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk or talk to them using Skype, Gizmo5 or any other VoIP service.

Download – Nimbuzz

7. Compass Touch

The N97 includes a Compass. But the only place it is used is in the Ovi Maps applications.

Download this app to access the magnetometer and use your N97 as a compass.

Download – Compass Touch

8. Shazam

“Lovin ’ that tune? Create music moments: discover and buy music.”

Loving that tune being played in the bar but can’t remember which song it is? Fire up Shazam and let it recognize that song for you. With a free for use trial till November 30th, This one deserves to be present on your N97 as well.

Download – Shazam

9. Dabr

Love to tweet? But not willing to pay for Gravity, the popular S60 twitter app? Dabr is just the right kind of service for you. It is a mobile optimized website for twitter. Dabr supports replies, retweets, sending DMs, image previews.

Download – Dabr

10. MeCanto

Do you feel 32 GB is still not enough to store your entire music library? Need more space?

Listen to your ENTIRE music collection on your phone and on the web. MeCanto lets you take your music collection with you, wherever you go, with virtually no storage limit.

Register for an account on www.mecanto.com & install the client on your computer where the entire music library is stored. You can then access your library from anywhere via the MeCanto website or your phone.

Download – MeCanto

Services :

The first feature that strikes you is the number of services supported by Nimbuzz. It supports an impressive number of 15 communities for IM including the major ones like Windows Live, Yahoo, Facebook, Google Talk, AIM, MySpace, ICQ. Along with the communities, It also supports VoIP with over 14 SIP accounts, as well as an option to configure a custom SIP account.

Chat :

Once your accounts are configured, you reach the contact list. The contact list in Nimbuzz is a single list showing your contacts from all the configured services alphabetically. Which means you no longer have you switch between services / apps to check on which service a friend of yours has come online. All your contacts, irrespective of the service, show up in a single list. Perfect.

Chat Window :

The interface of the chat window is what really pulled me towards Nimbuzz. The UI is clean and simple. The color combination makes it easy to differentiate the messages sent by you and the messages received by you. Emoticons are also supported, although I did not find them to be really pretty or cute.

Internet Calling :

Nimbuzz supports SIP protocal for VoIP calls. Though what would excite most users would be the fact that it supports making calls using SkypeOut too. Users can choose which call provider should Nimbuzz use when placing calls to the contacts in the phone book or any other number.

Extras :

Along with sending & receiving messages, Nimbuzz also supports sharing files & photos. You can either send already clicked photos, or take a new photo to send to your friend.

Another feature in Nimbuzz lets you backup your entire phone book on their servers, so in case you loose your phone ( Hope that you don’t ) or happen to loose your contacts due to some problem, you can restore them all from Nimbuzz easily.

If you are looking for an IM solution, look no further than Nimbuzz. It is your one stop solution for communicating with your friends or calling your loved ones abroad using Skype.

You can download Nimbuzz from the Ovi Store by visiting here or from their website here.

After Palringo & EQO messenger apps, it is now the turn of Nimbuzz to hit the Ovi Store.

Nimbuzz is a multi service IM & VoIP application supporting all the major IM services from Windows Live, Yahoo!, Google, Facebook, MySpace, ICQ, AIM and many more. Along with IM services, it also supports a host of SIP accounts enabling you to make cheaper VoIP calls.

According to their website, “Nimbuzz Mobile lets you call, chat, message, and send files on the go, for free. It combines all your buddies from Skype, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, AIM, Google Talk and more. One login, one contact list, all accounts”

I have been using Nimbuzz for the past few days and will publish a proper review soon.

Screenshots :

App. Details :

Name – Nimbuzz

Developers – Nimbuzz (Homepage)

Price – Free

Download from Ovi Store (The version available in the store is not the latest version. Instead of downloading the older version from the store, visit www.nimbuzz.com from your phone and download the latest version)

Download from their website

Update : The review of Nimbuzz is now up – [url=http://www.oviapplications.com/apps-and-games/social-networking/review-nimbuzz-the-one-app-to-im-them-all/]Nimbuzz : The one app to IM them all![/url]

One of the trends that we are noticing this year is the availability of more Location-Based Services (LBS) and applications. Using mobile devices, these applications leverage a users physical location to know where you/ and your friends are and use this data to provide enhanced services and experiences. We’ve also seen Internet giants such as Google enter into this market with Google Latitude and help fuel innovation across the board.

Luckily Nokia’s S60 and Series 40 platform includes a wide range of features to help developers and content producers make rich LBS applications and services. In this post, I am going to profile several of these apps that are available to download from the Ovi store.

Nulaz:

Nulaz mission is clear: “What is happening around you”- With Nulaz you can see where your friends are, share locations, and view local info. Nulaz also  enables you to share this information with other social network (Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc).

Buzzd:

This is another location based social network and city guide that keeps track of local information in real time and helps you connect with people, events and places around you.

PhoneLocator:

PhoneLocator native S60 realtime GPS tracking application for Nokia S60 phones. It allows you to view the location of your phone and a trail of where it has been using this website.

Near Here:

For $2.99, you can download this City Guide app that helps you search for pretty much anything around you. With Near Here you can find practical places, your  current location and save them in your phone memory for future.

Trackut:

Trackout is a free location based streaming service that enables users to create location oriented groups, network with friends and share location tagged data.

Looking at other mobile app platforms Ovi store has a lot more grounds to cover when it comes to LBS but this is one area that Nokia is very familiar with. Remember they made an acqusition of Berlin based Plazes last year which has evolved into Nokia Maps. With Plazes and other recent acquisitions (Twango, Loudeye, etc) Nokia is in a great position to connect people through location-based services, maps, music communities and gaming services.

Palringo is a FREE Instant Messaging chat program featuring text, picture and voice. Combine all your buddies from MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, and more. It works on 500+ mobiles including iPhone, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and others plus PC & Mac!

The great thing about Palringo is that you can also access Facebook chat AND Apple’s iChat.

Installation:

Before using this app, you must register for an account at Palringo. Once you are registered and have installed the app, you can then navigate through the menu and add multiple chat services.

Features:

Palringo has a very attractive user interface and this makes it easy to chat and navigate through the menu. One of the features of this app is that you are able to send and receive pictures and voice messages. Palringo runs on a low data connection and you can chat between multiple contacts simultaneously. The IM’s also show up real-time and requires no manual refreshing. You can also search for groups and join chat rooms with people that have similar interests. In addition Palringo makes it easy to update your status across a number of services in one try and supports insertion of location into your status so all of your friends can know when your location changes. <- Very cool.

Conclusion: Score 7/10

There are certainly other apps (Nimbuzz,  Fring, IM+Skype, etc)  that allow for multiple chats but since I’ve installed Palringo last week, I’ve noticed that my IM usage on my phone has gone up and I am more frequently chatting on my phone. The app runs smoothly and I’ve had no battery problems with it.

My only concern with this app is that you need to give them your IM account passwords and your account info is stored on their servers. I know this is a sensitive subject for some people out there but to me being able to access all my chat platforms from one centralized UI, makes it all worth it.

The popular mobile social messenger service Nimbuzz just released a brand new version of their app for Nokia 5800 devices. The Netherlands based company which allows users for instant messaging and VoIP access across Skype, MSN Live, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk and social networks such as Facebook and Myspace was just recently awarded the Red Herring Global 100 award as the first aggregated mobile IM product.

The update to the Nokia 5800 update includes :

• Landscape chat – make use of the wide screen keyboard
• Shortcut buttons – update your profile, status, or personal
message from the home screen
• No need for the stylus – Nimbuzz can be operated entirely
with your fingers

As part of this recent enhancement, Nimbuzz is giving away Nokia 5800 to 3 happy winners. All you have to do is complete this short survey about their service.

You can download the app for 5800 here!