I was looking for more than just Facebook numbers, but if I decide to go ahead with an in-depth analysis I may hit you up for what data you have.

What numbers do you need? I have unpublished facebook numbers by country, if you need – drop me an email if interested.

As to the login issue, I’ve toyed with browser management of them but again that still does not go deep enough for me. I want that layer removed, and the various services truly integrated at the lowest level. That’s the promise of Ovi– it just remains unfulfilled just yet.

I’m putting together a follow-up article on the subject– stay tuned!

Remember Nokia bailed out of the Japanese market. China also has a lot of local ‘clones’ going around. These are cheaper than the big American and European brands while giving an equivelant performance; at least good enough that Chinese people buy it.

I don’t know about the situation in India.

Authentication with a service like Ovi should be good if it contains such private information. The privacy statement should also be clear. Finland, EU has different laws than USA which might indeed attract some. As EU civilian I’d prefer to not rely on US corporations for my data because I have little clue about US law. But most people don’t look deeply into such.

Something else important is the ability for the user to opt-out of the service, and the ability to synchronize with their computer, leaving Ovi.

Such are examples which would make Ovi endorsable by geeks because they see benefits of Ovi beyond similar services.

Why is Ovi free though? We know why Google is free. One may like it or not, but it is at least clear. Platforms like this are also making the gap with cloud computing less wide. So I can imagine additional services (like disk space or hosting) integrated.

Your problem could also be solved by using an API in browser which accesses a database with a master key which contains all passwords. Some browsers implement this. Other programs leave it to the user to deal with the data after they authenticated.