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MOLOME reaches 1 million downloads at Nokia Store

MOLOME, a photo editing and sharing app, is the latest to achieve 1 million downloads at the Nokia Store.

Available on Nokia Belle and Nokia MeeGo smartphones, it’s no surprise that this app has finally reached this momentous stage. Its easy to use interface and filtering effects make this a must-have app for anybody wanting to spice up a photo and share it with their friends and as well as an engaged community.

We caught up with founder of MOLOME, Sittiphol Phanvilai to find out how he feels about reaching this milestone.

Reaching 1 million downloads must feel good, right?

“I am totally happy right now!”

You may see MOLOME as just another app with filter effects, but there’s more to it than that, explains Sittiphol.

“MOLOME is not just a photo sharing social network appellation, it also has a Gamification and cross-platform offering. The game aspect of MOLOME allows users to collect badges when they upload photos as a reward and also join in a monthly campaign. And cross-platform means that we plan to make it available on every single possible mobile platform.”

Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820

Our first Windows Phone 8 smartphones.

Be a part of it.

Including Windows Phone?

“Yes, MOLOME is coming to Windows Phone.”

We wondered what it must feel like having reached 1 million downloads for an app that’s free. If he received a dollar for every download…

“Nice idea. One million dollars? Wow! As nice of an idea that is, I’ve still got no plans to turn this into a paid app. I don’t think it’s easy to sell apps anymore. I prefer the model of distributing the app for free and gaining some money from another way; in-app purchases, for example.”

“At the moment you might not see any options like this in MOLOME, but you will shortly.”

When creating an app, Sittiphol tells us that it’s important to listen to your users.

“Our users are always giving us advice and we find it invaluable. They let us know of any bugs, new features they’d like to see and sometimes just praise on the app. Using customer feedback is the best way of knowing what parts need improving.”

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Having a successful app doesn’t happen by chance. Sittiphol believes there are many reasons why MOLOME has reached 1 million downloads but gives four main reasons.

Choose the right platform – We first released MOLOME on the Nokia Store back in early 2011. Nokia has so many incredible camera phones in the portfolio that a photo-sharing app for these just made sense.
Great support from Nokia – Nokia Thailand and Nokia Global has helped us a lot on promoting the app in their channels.
Listen and learn – We always listen to the feedback we get from the users of MOLOME and we improve it as fast as we can.
Social Network power – If you want people to share their images, you have to make it easy for them to do it. That’s what MOLOME allows you to share to Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr, VK, Picasa, Dropbox and Google Drive.

Having created a successful app in MOLOME, what’s next?

“We do have something in the pipeline. Something related to MOLO, the owl from MOLOME. That’s all I’m saying for now, stay tuned!”

Congratulations to MOLOME on reaching 1 million downloads and we wish them more success in the future.

Have you used MOLOME? Share your thoughts and well wishes in the comments section, below.

AppCampus booth at Hackathon

What is the next big app out there? The one application that will spur a revolution and perhaps change the way we work and play? We at the AppCampus program are trying to foster the creation of new innovative apps for Windows Phone, and Nokia platforms.

AppCampus is led and managed by Aalto University in Finland, and funded by Nokia and Microsoft. The basic idea is this: share your awesome idea or concept for a truly innovative mobile app and AppCampus might help you realize it with funding, coaching and any other help needed.

AppCampus is currently exhibiting at the Tech Crunch Disrupt 2012 expo in San Francisco and is attracting some of the best and brightest developers in the world.

Many projects already in the pipeline

“We’ve already received approximately 1,000 applications from 64 different countries,” says Pekka Sivonen, Head of AppCampus.

“This is the first time we’re having an official presence at an event, and we can’t wait to work with more developers at different events going forward.”

Pekka tells us that there are already 41 projects in the pipeline that have been approved and financed. In total, these 41 companies have received over $1.2 million in funding, but not to worry – there’s still more than $21 million left for what Pekka calls “truly novel ideas that are not yet available.”

Nokia AppCampus TechCrunch Disrupt SFO award

So how does AppCampus work? You submit your idea via the AppCampus website – a process that shouldn’t take more than an hour. Within two to four weeks you’ll get an initial response: Thumbs up, thumbs down … or maybe.

If selected your project will get a cash injection depending on the complexity and use of backend services such as Nokia Maps, Near Field Communication and imaging. Pekka explains that they’re on the lookout for “first to market ideas that don’t exist in any other marketplace today.”

Show us something disruptive

But it’s not all about cash. AppCampus also helps with coaching from Nokia and Microsoft, and with something as basic as office space, creating a business plan or planning go-to-market promotion. AppCampus consists of a team of eight people with a combined experience of 100+ years in mobile software. These are the kind of guys you want on your side.

“We’re getting a strong interest at TechCrunch Disrupt, not only from developers but also from angel investors that see this as a really strong value proposition,” says Pekka.

Nokia and App Campus also sponsored the prize for ‘The Most Disruptive Mobile Application Concept’ shown at Disrupt 2012. The winner, Livebolt, received $50,000.00 and a place in the AppCampus program.

Livebolt created a cloud based identity management system that consists of a block that slides on the back of the lock. That block links to an app that lets you authorize a piece of metal that actually locks and unlocks the door.

Earth ball

If the planet is going to combat climate change, then everyone will need to play a significant part: Individuals, governments and, yes, businesses as well.

Nokia definitely takes its sustainability responsibilities very seriously, but don’t just take our word for it.

Nokia is one of the world’s top 10 companies when it comes to climate change disclosure and performance, says a new report from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), and Nokia has also been included on the Dow Jones Sustainability indexes for 2012/2013..

CDP Climate Change Report 2012

The CDP is an independent and non-profit organisation that works to reduce carbon emissions and to promote sustainability by corporations and cities.

They provide an annual report, overseen by the professional services firm PwC, which provides an update on the climate change strategies at the world’s largest corporations.

This year’s CDP 500 Climate Change Report is issued on behalf of 655 institutional investors who represent $78 trillion in assets. That’s a lot of money and, it would appear, that the global boardrooms are starting to take notice.

It has found a substantial increase year on year in companies that are integrating climate change into their business strategies (2012: 78%, 2011: 68%).

This has amounted to real action. Corporate greenhouse emissions has fallen from 3.6 billion metric tonnes in 2009 to 3.1 metric billion tonnes in 2012. This is the equivalent to taking 138 million cars off the world’s roads. However, a third of companies (31%) reported no emissions reductions at all.

Sustainability at Nokia

Nokia is a company that is well known for its sustainable practices. You can read a Conversations post on its latest sustainability report here.

The philosophy of being a sustainable company doesn’t just exist at a boardroom level but runs through Nokia’s entire manufacturing and design process.

The CDP report praised companies for ‘improving their climate accountability, achieving higher average disclosure scores year-on-year’. Nokia was one of these companies.

Also, in terms of climate performance, the leading companies were found to think long term about climate change strategy and investing in activities that reduce their emissions. On this score, Nokia achieved the top A rating.

When combining, the climate disclosure and performance criteria, the CDP report was able to compile the world’s top 10 companies, which included Nokia. See the full list on the CDP website.

The Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes

More good news for Nokia’s sustainability performance came in the form of the 2012/2013 Dow Jones Sustainability Index ranking, which was published today. Taking a holistic view to sustainability, the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes are based on an in-depth analysis of corporate economic, environmental and social performance.

Nokia has improved its score from last year and is now in joint-second place, of the 21 communications and technology companies on the list.

Of all the communications technology companies only 21 have been selected to this list, and Nokia, is in shared second place together with Cisco Systems and Motorola Solutions behind the sector leader, Alcatel-Lucent.

Nokia has been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes since the year after its launch, for 13 consecutive years. The 2012/2013 indexes comprises 340 global companies.

image credit: nattu

Aaron Hall

How much do you love Nokia? Are you ready to call yourself a serious fan of Lumia? How about getting up at 3 a.m. to drive 400 miles to be among the first to check out the brand new Nokia Lumia 920 and 820 smartphones with Windows Phone 8?

Aaron Hall from Youngstown, Ohio, did just that. The 32-year old system administrator saw the invitation for Nokia’s evening event following the announcement of the new devices in New York. He RSVP’d, got the day off from his boss and got into his Nissan Altima to drive seven hours across the eastern U.S.

“I worked seven days a week since Memorial Day so this is my time off,” Aaron explains to us when Nokia Conversations sat down for a chat.

He was the very first one to stand in line for the fan event, which opened at 6pm. A few friendly Nokia employees tried to make the waiting a little more comfortable, bringing him a chair and some lunch from a nearby restaurant.

“I originally wanted the Nokia Lumia 900 but I’m not eligible for an upgrade until December. Now I have my sights on the Lumia 920 – I want the red one,” he says.

Aaron says he used to only buy HTC phones but was disappointed by the lack of support from the company: “They just release a phone but never update it.”

He says this is a big contrast between Nokia and a lot of the other players in the industry.

“You guys understand what it’s all about. When you realized you had a data connection issue with the Nokia Lumia 900 you took care of it – and fast. Since then you’ve released other updates. Not a lot of companies act that way.”

Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Nokia's Stephen Elop

Aaron can’t wait to get his hands on the Nokia Lumia 920, and he loves the style. “It’s unique and stands out,” he says.

He’s also excited about the PureView camera and OIS technology. “I see this as a killer feature. I think it will really stand out and I can’t wait to be able to show it off to all my friends.”

He admits that he would’ve loved to see more megapixels, maybe a whopping 41 megapixels like in the Nokia 808 PureView. “But I’m technical enough to understand that it’s not about pixels, it’s about quality,” he says.

Aaron left the event tooting a Nokia Play 360° Wireless Speaker and a Nokia Purity HD Stereo Headset by Monster. We can’t wait for him to hook them up to his Nokia Lumia 920.

We love it when innovative ideas became real world awesomeness. One industry, besides mobile tech, where you see this all the time is the film business. 3D, Imax, popcorn – it’s hard to nail down which cinematic gizmo has meant the most to moviegoers over the years. With worldwide attendance on the up – global box-office takings reached US$32.6 billion in 2011! – there’s never been a bigger audience on which to test-drive invention in the talkies. But which past innovations have been the real game-changers? We take a look at five contenders.

Colour

Sure, it’s an obvious one, but nailing non-monochrome images was the Grail of the photo-geeks back in the early twentieth century. Hand-tinting frames was one of the first techniques – In 1902, Georges Melies’s A Trip To The Moon was coloured in by twenty-one women in what must have been a rather finicky production line.

Then came the likes of Kinemacolor, Kodachrome, Trucolor, and everyone’s favourite, The Wizard Of Oz in Technicolor, and now there’s ne’er a black-and-white movie in sight.

Sound

It’s not like the pre-talkie flicks were actually silent – orchestras often played alongside movies in the fancier theatres, and piano-players were a common sight in cinemas when the budget didn’t extend to a larger ensemble. But once Hollywood managed to synch up sound and vision and record actors’ words, everything changed – from acting styles to casting, scriptwriting, soundtracks and the theatres themselves.

Warner Brother’s Vitaphone system, a sound-on-disc invention, kicked it all off in 1926 with Don Juan, and then The Jazz Singer, in 1927, was the first feature film with recorded dialogue. Now we’ve got surround sound not only in our theatres, but also in our homes. Silence? What’s that?

Green Screen

We’re all graphics experts these days, with Photoshop on our desktops and our eagle-eyes peeled to spot tell-tale CGI blunders in the latest blockbusters. But back in the early days, there weren’t many ways to fake it.

The era of digital compositing was launched way back in the 1940s when RKO Radio Pictures developed what they called the ‘travelling matte’ – an early version of what we’d recognise as green screens and chroma key technology – superimposed backdrops with the actors performing against a blank, coloured wall. Their pioneering movie was The Thief of Baghdad (1940). Anyone…?

Nonlinear Editing

Scissors, sticky-tape and film gave way to digital editing back in the 1970s, but really took off in the 1990s with the rise of Avid and their non-linear editing kit – leading to an explosion in relatively easily created video effects, from split-screens to digital crash-zooms and multi-track sound-effects, all made at the same desk at the press of a button, saving time, money and effort.

It’s not always obvious to the consumer, but to the movie-makers, the nonlinear revolution was like the switch from horse-and-cart to the Model T. Which led right to…

Low-Budget Film-Making Equipment

Semi-professional kit like affordable video cameras, hard-drive storage and Final Cut Pro has flung the doors of movie-making wide open. Now fledging directors can get their groove on without sourcing multi-million dollar financing.

Sure, not every cheap film is a masterpiece, but there’s nothing like practice, right? And with festivals like the London Independent Film Festival catering directly to the no-budget market – and the option to distribute your films for free online, if you choose – there’s never been a better time to be a young Spielberg.

These are our five cinematic tech superstars, but what about yours? Does IMAX deserve a place on the podium? Should 3D be given a big thumbs up? Let us know in the comments below.