Nokia Acquires Plazes Social Service

By Nick Mokey June 22, 2008

What do you get when you combine the minute-by-minute updates of a service like Twitter with real-time mapping? Plazes, a German start-up that has just been snapped up by Nokia in order to bring its location-based social calendars to the company’s phones.

Like with Twitter, Plazes users can provide constant updates about their activities, which are in turn broadcast to interested friends, but Plazes adds location into the mix by physically plotting where users are on a Google Map. Users can also add details about an upcoming event they will be attending, then invite others, to make anything from a birthday party to a after-work happy hour easier to organize.

Nokia didn’t specifically cite which phones would be getting Plazes compatibility tacked on, but with its built-in GPS, the N95 would make a likely first candidate. The company also hasn’t announced any intention to seal non-Nokia users out of Plazes, which right can now be access by anyone with SMS messages.

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