As part of TravelingGeeks prep for London, we met with the Nokia Ovi maps team 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.
Renee Blodgett is the founder of We Blog the World. The site combines the magic of an online culture and travel magazine with a global blog network and has contributors from every continent in the world. Having lived in 10 countries and explored nearly 80, she is an avid traveler, and a lover, observer and participant in cultural diversity.
She is also the CEO and founder of Magic Sauce Media, a new media services consultancy focused on viral marketing, social media, branding, events and PR. For over 20 years, she has helped companies from 12 countries get traction in the market. Known for her global and organic approach to product and corporate launches, Renee practices what she pitches and as an active user of social media, she helps clients navigate digital waters from around the world. Renee has been blogging for over 16 years and regularly writes on her personal blog Down the Avenue, Huffington Post, BlogHer, We Blog the World and other sites. She was ranked #12 Social Media Influencer by Forbes Magazine and is listed as a new media influencer and game changer on various sites and books on the new media revolution. In 2013, she was listed as the 6th most influential woman in social media by Forbes Magazine on a Top 20 List.
Her passion for art, storytelling and photography led to the launch of Magic Sauce Photography, which is a visual extension of her writing, the result of which has led to producing six photo books: Galapagos Islands, London, South Africa, Rome, Urbanization and Ecuador.
Renee is also the co-founder of Traveling Geeks, an initiative that brings entrepreneurs, thought leaders, bloggers, creators, curators and influencers to other countries to share and learn from peers, governments, corporations, and the general public in order to educate, share, evaluate, and promote innovative technologies.
