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 know-how in creating Internet-based communities and showing users' journeys, experiences and tastes collectively on the wired and mobile Web.

?With this acquisition we wanted to get the experience from the team to Nokia,? said Antti Miettinen, spokeswoman for Nokia, Espoo, Finland. ?They have unique experience in building social Internet communities.?

Nokia claims to be the world's leading maker of mobile devices. The company?s goal is to fuse advanced mobile technology with personalized services.

The OEM also provides digital map information through Navteq, as well as equipment and services for communications networks through Nokia Siemens Networks.

Dopplr promotes itself as a service for smart travelers.

Dopplr members share personal and business travel plans privately with their networks and highlight interesting places to stay, eat and explore in cities worldwide.

Dopplr presents this collective intelligence?the travel patterns and preferences of the world's most frequent travelers?as a Social Atlas.

The Dopplr application for the iPhone and iPod touch can leverage the handset?s GPS functionality to show users nearby places to eat, stay and explore, as recommended by the Dopplr community. It also comes with built-in recommendations for 250 popular cities worldwide.

With a single tap, users can add new places they have discovered to the Dopplr Social Atlas. Users can confirm these additions and enter more details at Dopplr.com.

Those application users who have a Dopplr account can keep track of their fellow travelers, find out where they are now and what future trips they have planned. Users can also contact travelers directly from inside the application.

Users can view their own planned trips and find coincidences where fellow travelers will be nearby.

The Nokia acquisition does not change the current Dopplr service, which is available at Dopplr.com and on platforms where Dopplr is integrated, such as the iPhone.

The Dopplr application should appear in Nokia's Ovi Store shortly.

?This will strengthen Nokia's efforts in social location,? Ms. Miettinen said.