Welcome to the world of Ovi Fans! Meet Clinton Jeff from ZOMGitsCJ.com

Hi, all!

Like I mentioned in my little “recruitment” post a couple of days ago, today we start a brand new series here at the Ovi Blog called “Ovi Fan Interviews”. My initial suggestion of calling the series “Why our fans are better than everyone else’s fans” was unfortunately dismissed. But! We here are super, super excited about starting this series! Starting from this week, we will publish interviews we’ve made with our awesome Ovi fans (you guys!) and introduce you and your thoughts to the world. You guys make our work here at Ovi Blog so fun and rewarding (and, you know, possible), and it’s about time we turn the tables and see what you guys are all about!

So, are you ready? Our dear friend Clinton Jeff, who you may know from ZOMGitsCJ.com, was kind enough to help me kick off the series and be my first interviewee. Fun fact: remember our Ovi Maps Stories competition a while back? CJ was one of the winners with this fantastic video!

Click here to view the embedded video.

And speaking of videos, CJ was also awesome enough to make us this Ovi Blog-exclusive video. How much do we love you, seriously?

Click here to view the embedded video.

YAY! Now, one more matter that we need to deal with before we hop into the interview itself: would you like to be interviewed for the Ovi Blog as well? Let us know in the comments section, I’m looking for potential victims, whoops I mean volunteers!

Oh, and P.S. tune in next Monday when I talk to our friend OviJade from SymbianWorld!

Now, Clinton. Who are you and what do you do? Tell us the story of your life!

Yikes, the Story of my life. In a nutshell, like my Twitter profile says, I know Kung Fu, Karate, Taekwondo and 30 other dangerous words.

I like to find humor in unusual places. Timely snapshots, videos of your friends acting silly. And of course, I’m not above sticking a straw up my nose or cracking politically incorrect jokes or making fun in public and having my friends getting embarrassed. I have a pretty insane sense of humor, which results in some very awkward situations.

I was born and raised in Kuwait, moved to India to do my engineering degree (nerd alert y’all) and now I work in Social Media in Delhi. You can ask anyone who has met me, watching me ‘survive’ India is pure comedy. But I took a year off everything to travel around the country back in 2008, and I’ve fallen in love with the place (shameless plug: travel pics here). It’s just so magical. When I’m not doing all that, I’m blogging on ZOMGitsCj.com trying to keep everyone updated on the latest Nokia news.

What makes you passionate about what you do?

As a Nokia blogger, I’ve always been a Nokia/Symbian enthusiast since the day I got my ol’ Nokia 7650 back in 2003. I’ve watched Nokia do some really great things, and also make some mistakes. I was one of the biggest supporters of N-Gage (even was a Player of the Month over on the N-Gage Arena!) but we all know what became of that. When you stick with a brand that long, you sort of feel like you own stock in them or something, even if you dont But I also love technology and the way it influences how we live.

What do you like to do on your spare time?

I like listening to music, watching movies (sci-fi/horror/comedy and various anything else). I try to catch up on that whenever I can. Then there are always the little things like hanging out with friends. The free time I have becomes more and more precious to me as the years go by.

As a hobby, I love traveling and photography, and how it teaches you to look at the world around you. I carry my camera-phone with me everywhere in case I don’t look enough. My Flickr is filled up with my attempts every day. I can’t afford a proper DSLR, and I’ve never found Point&Shoot cameras any use, so it’s all mobile-phone-photography for me. That’s why I cant wait to check out the Nokia N8 when it comes along! Unfortunately I haven’t travelled outside of India yet (Kuwait doesn’t count), so there’s still a lot for me to see.

I also have a pet dog back home who I really really miss!

How did you find out about us (the Ovi Blog)?

I’ve been following the Ovi Blog since the day it launched after Ovi.com. I’m not sure, but I think I found it via Nokia Conversations, or my usual snooping around the Internets! I love how you guys have gotten a whole lot more active and interactive since then. Keep it up guys, great work!

How long have you been a Ovi/Nokia fan?

I’ve been a Nokia fan since I got my Nokia 3330 in 1999. I remember I was so amazed by the fact that the thing had an “Internal Antenna”, haha.

What do you like most about Ovi/Nokia?

With Ovi, you guys keep trying me. I was a fan of Share until the redesign made it unusable for me. But (as you guys already know from my Ovi Maps Story and my Blog), I’m a HUGE fan of Ovi Maps. Cannot survive without it. Incredibly useful when you’ve in a new city. And of course, I check the Store very often.

What was your very first Nokia device?

My first Nokia device was a Nokia 3330. Even though it looked JUST like the 3310, but cost quite a bit more, I remember buying it only because it had animated screensavers and WAP at the time.

Which device do you use right now?

I’m still sticking with my Loyal Nokia N82. I initially bought it as a gift for my Dad, but after a day of using it, the Xenon Flash won me over and I gave him my N95 instead. I’ve used it in blazing Kuwait heat to take pictures, Geo-tag my images, use GPS to find out where I am, and it still had enough battery left to make calls and play the occasional videogame. It was also my phone of choice when I backpacked around India, and I don’t think any other phone could have survived the things I put it through. There’s no all-around camera phone that can beat this thing, albeit it is starting to show it’s age. I dont think I’ll ever sell this one, it’s a classic.

But thanks to the awesome guys at WOMWorld/Nokia and Nokia India, I’m lucky enough to check out Nokia’s phones for a week or two. That is majorly appreciated.

Speaking of our friends over at WOMWorld/Nokia, a little birdie told me that someone’s going to Nokia World 2010 in London! How are you feeling right now?

Oh man. I can’t actually put it into words. Like I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been in the Nokia scene for a while now, so I’ve seen a lot of Nokia Worlds come and go, and judged them from the outside. But to actually be AT one? Whoa.

I’m literally counting down the days. This Nokia World is going to be especially sweet since apart from possible device launches and such, I’ll be meeting other Nokia blogger friends, some of whom I’ve known for years, but only online. I’m not sure what’ll happen to me with THAT much Nokia-ness around me. It’s quite possible that I’ll go completely mad

Plus, I love traveling, but ironically I’ve never really been outside of Kuwait and India. So the whole fact that I’m going to see London is adding to the whole excitement level. I’m such a tourist, I’m going to take pictures of EVERYTHING!

It still hasn’t sunk in, to be honest. I’m still massively excited. A hint of that can be seen in the video I made on ZOMGitsCJ.com. Much thanks to the guys at WOMWorld/Nokia!

What’s your favourite thing you’ve downloaded from Store? Why?

That’s a toughy. I have a pre-defined list of apps in my head that I download from the Store whenever I get a new trial LOL. I’d think Gravity would be my most downloaded app. On the N900, Angry Birds is deffo the first thing I looked for on the Store. There’s also the ZOMGitsCj app (thanks to the Ovi App Wizard) but I might be a bit biased on that one.

What were you looking for the last time you used Maps?

I kid you not, I was looking for a coffee shop. It was last weekend when I was being all tourist-CJ and checking out some of Delhi’s sights with a friend. We were at the Red Fort, tired after walking around and desperately needed a cup of coffee to recharge. Thanks to Ovi Maps I found a McDonald’s down the street. Not the best coffee, but hey, it was good enough for the occasion.

What would you like tell us here at Ovi by Nokia?

You have been doing great work with the blog so far. And thanks to how well you guys have made Ovi Maps, I honestly am SO dependent on that thing. The Store has been good, but it can still be more streamlined in my opinion.

Much thanks for Ovi-nterview guys!