The house was spectacular. Clean and modern. The second floor looked out into the main room which opened up to the rear outdoors which offered a stunning view of LA below. Small metallic inked booklets laid out the different themed rooms of the party. At each focal point in the mansion, young folks with Nokia shirts were on hand to provide assistance (not always succesfully.)
One room showcased video games that you could play on Nokia NSeries phones. I tried my hand at a fishing game. Well versed in fishing video games from the Wii Play title (which has caused me to gleefully kick up both legs in the air as I reel in “the big one.”), I asked my young Nokia lad, “Do I pull the phone back like with the Wii?” He replied, “No, but that would be cool!” He did say they were “working on that” and a quick google search reveals that the Nokia 5500 does indeed have a motion sensor which offers all sorts of cardiomobile stylings. That being said, the fishing game was enjoyable.
My first haul was an old bottle, but I eventually pulled in a big carp or mackeral or something. The phones were all connected to nice full size monitors, so you didn’t have to rely on the cell phone screen. At one point the Nokia lad was trying to restart the game for me and he stepped back to the main game menu which offered me a quick look at some of the other games on the phone including… Sudoku! Now *that* got me excited!
The main room was classified as “the heart of the party” and that’s where a DJ operated an assortment of gadgets — Nokia phones, Apple laptops and I believe even turntables — to produce music and visuals. There were some Nokia gals that were showcasing the N800 but everytime I drifted over to them they drifted away from me to someone else, just like the game fish that eluded me!
I did manage to find friend and neighbor Steve Garfield who was in town for the Podcast and New Media Expo. Steve and I live about a five minute walk from each other, but we haven’t been able to connect for a while due to our usual busyness. Alas, it takes flying across the country to have some quality time together. Steve introduced me to Steve from Jet Set and Kenyatta of Rocketboom — friendly fellows, both of them!
The main room also served as a gathering for a viewing of a Nokia video followed by a talk by Nokia’s VP of Multimedia in North America Bill Plummer. I gathered from my compatriots (who in general are much more on top of all of this stuff) that they were expecting/hoping for some sort of new product announcement, but Plummer seemed to only reiterate the strengths of the existing Nokia Nseries line.
With that official business out of the way, the party moved into second gear.
(To be continued…)
