Nokia's WidSets Emerges from Beta

Nokia announced on Tuesday that its innovative Internet service called WidSets, launched a year ago, has emerged from Beta to a new service platform. The new platform will offer improved usability by localizing mobile clients and improving the mobile widget library.

WidSets, which will bring advertising in as the primary business model, works on Java-enabled handsets from a range of manufacturers and utilizes widgets, so users can have one-click access to real-time online content without needing to use a mobile browser.

"We've been delighted with the feedback we've had from the Beta trials of WidSets," said Jarmo Jokinen, Director of WidSets, Nokia Emerging Business Unit. "We've had more than 3 million users register for the WidSets service on more than 300 models of mobile device. We've valued the early feedback, which has enabled us to launch a more compelling service for users and content providers."

The new platform offers a dynamic search feature and an improved widget creation tool for quicker, simpler and more personalized options for creating widgets. And now it is really easy: enter the web address, click to select the feed and then you will have a personal widget!

WidSets works on a variety of mobile phones, and is currently compatible with over 300 mobile devices. Around 90 percent of the available content is already user generated, but many new widgets have been added by the WidSets team and it's becoming easier for users to find local and non-English content.

The new Explore feature for finding widgets offers an option to perform a live search, filter through recommended widgets, or go through tags or categories, and download them for use on mobile devices. It also offers a unique advertising model to commercial customers for providing two-way interaction between advertiser and customer.

Users can easily download WidSets from the website. They can also also review widgets and see the latest, most popular or top-rated widgets and share those with others. Now this can also be done from a mobile device.

The WidSets mobile dashboard can also now be shared. This means that when creating a profile, users may share their own dashboard and widgets with the others, and see what the other 'WidSeteers' are using as well as how they look like, thanks to the user images.

Nokia plans to preinstall WidSets in millions of mobile phones during 2008, and enabling service support in multiple languages. The recently unveiled Nokia 8800 Arte will be the first handset to offer WidSets to its style-conscious consumers.

In addition, users can already get started with WidSets via the Download! folder on all Nokia Nseries and Eseries devices.