Will had the scoop on the confusion last week when TechCrunch said Nokia purchased Dopplr. It was claimed to be yet another example of TechCrunch doing shoddy journalism, but as of today, TechCrunch is in the clear since Nokia just announced they’ve purchased Dopplr. The press release is so short, I figure I’d copy and paste it for you right here:
Espoo, Finland – Nokia and Dopplr announced today that Nokia has acquired Dopplr Oy, a privately-held mobile service provider for international travelers. Dopplr has a team of seven people with offices in London and Helsinki. The Dopplr team brings to Nokia’s Services unit unique know-how in creating internet-based communities and showing their journeys, experiences and tastes collectively on the web.
The acquisition does not change the current Dopplr service which is available at Dopplr.com and on platforms where Dopplr is integrated.
There you go. It’s official. Now what exactly is Dopplr? Say you’re going on a trip, you broadcast your intention of going on said trip and then you can see who else is going to be in the same city as you. Basically it’s a social network for the jet set crowd, and it has won lots of praise due to their fantastic data visualization work.
This concept of “intent broadcasting” isn’t new. Many of you probably do it on a daily basis and don’t even know it. For example, an hour or two before I go out for lunch, I ask my Twitter followers who is up for lunch in Helsinki. I’ve managed to score a few lunch dates like that. Back to Dopplr, they’ve executed on the intent broadcasting concept quite well. I know at least one of the guys there, Matt Jones, is ex-Nokia.
Good luck to you all, hope you don’t have to deal with integration issues. If you haven’t installed PowerPoint on your work laptops yet, I recommend you do so immediately.
Update: Robin Wauters from Tech Crunch has left a comment below saying: “Lisa Sounio stepped aside as CEO of Dopplr some time ago and became chairman, her husband Marko Ahtisaari took over as chief exec”. Thanks for the correction!