Let me first preface this announcement by first thanking everyone who has been supporting Internet Tablet Talk (itT) and making it the best resource for discussing the Nokia Internet Tablet and anything Maemo related.

Since the Maemo Summit, I have been discussing with Quim Gil and Jussi Makinen of Nokia as well as some of the council members on ways that itT could work more closely with maemo.org. The idea of bringing itT under the maemo.org umbrella came up, and I think it’s a good one. I’ve agreed with the council and the folks from Nokia to move itT to talk.maemo.org, and Nokia has agreed to become the primary sponsor of the site.

So, what does this mean? Well basically, the itT forums will become talk.maemo.org by early next year. The discussions will be carried over, the forum features will be retained, the forum look will change, moderators and admins will be added, the ads will be removed, and will still run on the same fast server you have all been enjoying for several years now. We will lose some parts of itT however like the news, wiki, and software sections in favor of maemo.org’s actual News, Wiki and Download sections. Roger and I however, will still be blogging/posting news from a new blog feature of the forums that is hoped to be added.

With the integration in place, I am hoping to join the maemo.org team to basically manage the forums. I would still like to take on the task however, of somehow linking the maemo.org Download section with the forums as I have originally planned in itT. Hopefully, such integration, and other future end-user interaction can make use of the new talk.maemo.org section.

I am excited to see this happen. I do think this is a huge step forward for the Maemo community. As usual, we would like to hear constructive feedback. How do you all think we can improve things in the forum. What do you want added, and what do you want changed. Chime in.

More details over at the maemo.org wiki.