Online services

.mobi and the Mobile Web

Nokia was the first proponent of a Top Level Domain (TLD) specifically for the Mobile Web and, as a result, was instrumental in the launch of the .mobi domain name extension in September 2006 as an official backer. Since then, Nokia has launched the largest mobile portal, Nokia.mobi, which receives over 100 million visits a month. It followed that with the launch of a mobile Ad Service to cater to the growing demand for mobile advertisement.

Ovi Main article: Ovi (Nokia) Nokia Ovi logo.

Ovi, announced on 29 August 2007, was the name for Nokia's "umbrella concept" Internet services. Centered on Ovi.com, it was marketed as a "personal dashboard" where users can share photos with friends, download music, maps and games directly to their phones and access third-party services like Yahoo's Flickr photo site. It has some significance in that Nokia is moving deeper into the world of Internet services, where head-on competition with Microsoft, Google and Apple is inevitable.

The services offered through Ovi included the Ovi Store (Nokia's application store), the Nokia Music Store, Nokia Maps, Ovi Mail, the N-Gage mobile gaming platform available for several S60 smartphones, Ovi Share, Ovi Files, and Contacts and Calendar. The Ovi Store, the Ovi application store was launched in May 2009. Prior to opening the Ovi Store, Nokia integrated its software Download! store, the stripped-down MOSH repository and the widget service WidSets into it.

Nokia discontinued the Ovi brand in 2011, continuing to offer its services under the main brand.

My Nokia

Nokia offers a free personalised service to Nokia owners called My Nokia (located at my.nokia.com). Registered My Nokia users can get free services as follows:

Tips & tricks alerts through web, e-mail and also mobile text message. My Nokia Backup: A free online backup service for mobile contacts, calendar logs and also various other files. This service needs GPRS connection. Ringtones, wallpapers, screensavers, games and other things can be downloaded free of cost. Comes With Music

In 2007 Nokia set up their "Nokia Comes With Music" service, in partnership with Universal Music Group International, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, EMI, and hundreds of independent labels and music aggregators, to allow 12, 18, or 24 months of unlimited free-of-charge music downloads with the purchase of a Nokia Comes With Music edition phone. Files could be downloaded on mobile devices or personal computers, and kept permanently.

In January 2011 Nokia withdrew this program in 27 countries, due to its failure to gain traction with customers or mobile network operators; existing subscribers could continue to download until their contracts ended. The service continued to be offered in China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa where take-up had been better.

Nokia Messaging

On 13 August 2008 Nokia launched a beta release of "Nokia Email service", a push e-mail service, since incorporated into Nokia Messaging.

Nokia Messaging operates as a centralised, hosted service that acts as a proxy between the Nokia Messaging client and the user's e-mail server. The phone does not connect directly to the e-mail server, but instead sends e-mail credentials to Nokia's servers. IMAP is used as the protocol to transfer emails between the client and the server.