Nokia just announced that it has acquired UK-based social travel network Dopplr in efforts to grow its online offerings. It looks like the deal, among Nokia’s other social networking startup shopping spree snap ups lately, is more to do with putting together a top-notch social networking team than acquiring software.
Last week, reports came out that the deal was already a done deal, but the official announcement went out yesterday. Terms of the deal were not released.
Dopplr allows users to create trips and share them with friends. Nokia says that it doesn’t plan to change Dopplr. So why buy the social network? A lot has to do with the team focused on “design and user experience,” according to the announcement. A lot of the Dopplr team members used to work at Nokia, including CEO Marko Ahtisaari, who was previously the Director of Design Strategy at Nokia, not to mention a slew of their interface designers and tech team.
So there’s a lot of speculation that the deal had more to do with getting the people back on board Nokia, then in the actual product. Regardless, it’s an interesting purchase given Nokia’s focus on the social networking space both online and mobile.
Earlier this month, Nokia purchased Plum, a platform used to create private social networks such as i-Concerts, travel site ViaMichelin, and travel search engine Mossimo. Over the summer, Nokia snapped up German-based Cellity, a social networking software company, but just acquired the company’s 14 employees for their social networking expertise, and then shut down the service.
Nokia obviously sees big bucks in social networking around all things local, and with all its acquisitions is building out a killer team to take a vigorous stab at the market.
