Nokia on Friday said it acquired
"certain assets" of "micro-social networking" start-up Plum Networks. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The acquired Plum assets will become part of Nokia's Services unit, according to
the phone maker. "Plum will complement Nokia's Social Location services," a Nokia spokesperson said. Co-founded several years ago by serial entrepreneur Hans Peter Brøndmo and engineer Margaret
Olsen as a social-bookmarking site, Plum has since sought to carve out a niche for itself in the saturated social networking market.
"Plum Groups is a service for those of us that want to share
the more private parts of our lives with smaller groups of people we are close to such as family and friends," Brøndmo said in a blog post on Friday. "It fills the need need [sic] for 'private'
sharing and conversations."
With Facebook presently leading the way, the future of mobile social network looks bright. This past year alone, Facebook's mobile users tripled to 65 million
worldwide. That means that about a quarter of its 250 million monthly users are now accessing the site through mobile devices.
Anxious to capture a share of that market, Nokia recently
introduced a "Lifecasting" service that integrates its phones with Facebook. Added Brøndmo: "We can't talk about what we will be doing as a part of Nokia yet ... Rest assured that Plum Groups
continues to operate unchanged."
The privately held Plum presently employs about 10 people between its offices in Boston and San Francisco.
A native of Norway and an MIT graduate,
Brøndmo has now successfully sold three startups he helped create. Prior to Plum, he sold an email marketing software-as-a-service company named Post Communications to Netcentives in 2000.
Previously, Avid Technology acquired Brøndmo's consumer-focused digital video editing service DiVA in 1993.
Plum is backed by Vulcan Capital and Levensohn Venture Partners.