Nokia buys another location company

The Finnish handset behemoth has snapped up yet another location-based services company, Germany's Plazes. The 13-strong startup, based in Berlin, provides "a context-aware social-activity service that people can use to plan, record, and share their social activities: why they are at a given location at a given time, whether in the past, present or future." Whatever that means.

From the press release:

By acquiring Plazes, Nokia will be able to extend its context-based service offering with social presence and time-based activity planning features. Plazes adds the elements of "place" and "time" to social networking through features that allow people to alert friends of their activity and location; review their own and others' past activities; share their experiences and make plans with friends, who are then able to respond with comments and suggestions as well as their own location information.

Sounds interesting. Seeing as the company already has Navteq and sticks GPS in most of its handsets, this could be where Nokia's muscle translates into something truly innovative on the location front.