Nokia Maps is a powerful A-Z cum satnav as it is, but it could be about to get even smarter: Nokia has snapped up travel social network Dopplr. Is the city guide internet service about to get the mashup treatment from Espoo?
Nokia confirmed this week that the mobile giant has bought Dopplr, an online social network that lets you share travel plans privately with friends and colleagues, and get travel tips. But just what’s it bought it for?
The start-up’s CEO Marko Ahtisaari says that the Finns share his company’s vision of the “Social Atlas”, or the “collective intelligence of travel patterns” as the site puts it. That sounds like just the sort of thing Nokia would love to sew into Nokia Maps as it rebrands itself as a mobile services provider. We’d love to see our calendar and those of the people we work with overlaid on a map and combined with crowd sourced advice on how to get there, so you know where you’re headed and how.
No official plans have been announced other than a brief line from Espoo saying Dopplr will bring “unique know-how in creating internet-based communities and showing their journeys, experiences and tastes collectively on the web.” But Dopplr already integrates with both Facebook and Twitter: could Nokia Maps be next?
