Nokia buys social travel firm Dopplr

Nokia has bought Dopplr, a company that provides a social network for international travellers who want to meet up as their journeys cross paths.

The Finnish handset company announced the purchase of the privately held firm, which employs seven people in London and Helsinki offices, on Monday. The amount of money involved in the transaction has not been disclosed.

"Today, we're thrilled to announce that Dopplr has been acquired by Nokia," Dopplr chief executive Marko Ahtisaari wrote in a blog post on Monday.

According to Ahtisaari, who used to work for Nokia as director of design strategy, the handset maker "shares [Dopplr's] vision of the Social Atlas, the idea that social location data can improve our experience of cities".

Over the past year or two, Nokia has been making a concerted push into the online services market, largely through acquisitions and the development of its Ovi applications platform. The Dopplr buy marks Nokia's first major acquisition since July, when it picked up the German contact aggregation and internet telephony firm Cellity.

The Dopplr team will be incorporated into Nokia's Services unit, where it will provide "know-how in creating internet-based communities and showing their journeys, experiences and tastes collectively on the web", Nokia said in a statement.

The current Dopplr service, which runs on the desktop and platforms including the iPhone, Flickr and Twitter, remains unaffected by the buyout.