Check in on Foursquare with Maps: introducing Jennifer

In this blog post, we bring to you Jennifer (@jennifr), who is behind Check in for Maps. She will be talking to us about the latest improvements of the service today. Hi Jen, what do you do in Nokia? What excites you about working here? I’m the Product Owner for ...

In this blog post, we bring to you Jennifer (@jennifr), who is behind Check in for Maps. She will be talking to us about the latest improvements of the service today.

Hi Jen, what do you do in Nokia? What excites you about working here? I’m the Product Owner for Check in, the social aspect of Maps on Symbian smartphones. Basically, Product Owner that means I make sure that we develop cool new features and that everyone involved, for example our developers, UI designers and testers, are on the same page. I only joined Nokia in September after working as a Symbian developer before and I really love working with the folks here in Berlin. They’re all really nice and talented! And Berlin just rocks

What devices are you currently using? Do you remember your first phone? I mostly use my Nokia N8 and always have the latest test build of what we do installed – all the good stuff that will be coming out in the future and that we’re working on hard. In addition to that I have a Nokia N900 that I love (I’m a nerd, after all) and my trusty Nokia 6220 classic, for any situation where I wouldn’t want to risk losing my beloved Nokia N8. My first phone was a Siemens one, C45 or something like that.
I remember I used to think mobile phones were for snobby people since in the beginning everything was so expensive. But once phones could do more than just make calls I was hooked, and once smart phones appeared on the market, I knew that this was where I wanted to work. The Siemens SX1 was my first smart phone, I think it was the one and only S60 phone that Siemens did. I still loved it – I had an actual operating system on my phone that I could tap into, install applications to and customize! I guess you can say that Symbian/S60 was my first mobile love

Can you tell us a bit about the Check in service? How did you guys come up with the idea? We’ve already had the ability to share your location from within Maps on Facebook for a while, so expanding on this was really a no-brainer. We wanted to create something that is easy to use, and allows you to keep in touch with your friends easily. That is why we also support local networks. I use it all the time to let people know I arrived somewhere at the airport (my mom tends to get worried…) or make my friends jealous of the awesome apple pie I had at my favorite café.
But of course not everyone wants to share everything all the time so we wanted to make sure that you are in control of what you share and also the data you send to us. That’s why we have the private Check in, and also the option to delete all your data from our servers. It’s your data, and we’re very much honored that you share it with us, so of course we allow you to delete it anytime.

What is the latest news from Check-In? We just released a new version of Check in to Maps! You can download it from Nokia Beta Labs. We’ve added some new features due to popular demand. You can now check into Foursquare and Qype directly and simultaneously. You’ll see which badges you got for your Check in, how often you checked into the place and whether you ousted someone as the mayor – all in one lovely aggregated spot. Your favorite pizza joint is missing? Add it yourself and check in immediately.

Sounds interesting. Tell us more! Check in to Foursquare as you check in with us and share where you’re at and what you’re up to on your favorite social networks. Our list keeps growing! You may need to match the place on Ovi for us to the corresponding one on Foursquare or Qype, but we’ll remember that link. Next time you check into the same place you won’t have to do that anymore. Additionally, we’ve worked hard to improve some issues that have been nagging everyone and polish the UI a bit more. Let us know what you think of the new features at Nokia Beta Labs. I will be there to answer your queries.

You are the star in one of the most watched youtube videos that we had (100,000 views and counting ) on the Blog. Tell us a bit about that shoot 100,000+ views? My. Goodness. I didn’t even know that… Not bad for someone who doesn’t even like her picture taken

Click here to view the embedded video.

The video shoot was amazing. It is so weird, and fantastic, to have all these people buzzing around you, all just trying to make sure you do the right things and look ok on camera. It’s amazing how much planning goes into a video like that. The crew was awesome, and so nice. The most difficult part was shooting at Mauerpark though. There were about two thousand – three thousand people watching the karaoke and I was soooo scared. I do sing in my free time but never in front of that many people, and when I initially agreed to doing a video there certainly was no mention of anything like this! I guess I was better off than Pino though, with his incredible stunt running straight down a tall, tall building.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Any parting words for our users? I would like to say thanks to anyone who is using Check in and especially to all of you who give us feedback on Nokia Beta Labs. That is so incredibly valuable and important for us. I read through all of your comments on Check in, and I also try to reply to all of them. If you have any ideas for features for Check in or Maps, please tell us, just write a post over there! And also – Ladies, I would love to hear more from you. I know my fellow tech-loving girls are out there!

-Surya (@suryasnair)

Source : http://blog.ovi.com/2011/02/24/check-in-on-foursqu...