Heroes to open door on Nokia app store

The world’s biggest handset vendor, Nokia, gave some indication of its ambitions for the application store known as Ovi this week, announcing a content deal with Tim Kring, creator of the TV show Heroes.

When the Ovi Store opens its doors in the summer, Nokia will offer a multi-platform narrative developed by Kring, by way of demonstration that the Ovi Store is not just an app shop, but is also a “full blown entertainment channel,” as one analyst put it.

Commenting on the news, Eden Zoller, principal analyst at Ovum, said that the Finnish firm’s approach makes its mobile marketplace different and more ambitious than most of the other app stores hitting the market.

“This is partly why Nokia makes such a big play of the personalisation, location and social media features that underpin Ovi and which it hopes will provide differentiation, for both users and developers,” Zoller said.

By way of an example, the analyst referred to the release of the beta version of Nokia’s Point & Find application, which allows users to point their phone at physical objects, initially movie posters, and access related information and services over the web. This takes advantage of the handset’s key features such as camera, GPS and web browser and also hints at Nokia’s designs on the mobile advertising space.

App stores are still the hottest topics in the mobile handset space at present. Earlier this week, Canadian gadget shop Research In Motion (RIM) opened the doors to its application storefront, BlackBerry App World. Jumping on an increasingly crowded bandwagon alongside Apple and Android, RIM is pitching BlackBerry App World to developers as a channel to reach over 21 million BlackBerry users worldwide.