
Nokia To Acquire Dopplr - pclark
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/23/nokia-to-acqure-uk-startup-dopplr/
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axod
>> " The site has never grown to huge usage, but core users are passionate
about the service"

I never really understand how these things manage to sell for so much, having
so few users.

>> "Dopplr cofounder and CEO Marko Ahtisaari was previously the Director of
Design Strategy at Nokia."

Oh... I see...

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pavlov
Marko Ahtisaari's primary credential is that he's the son of former Finnish
president (and Nobel Peace Prize laureate) Martti Ahtisaari.

Dopplr always seemed like a startup that's been tailor-designed for a Nokia
acquisition exit. Glad to see it worked out for them.

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davidw
Dopplr's kind of cool, but I'm still looking for the right thing:

I travel occasionally, and in reality, it's not my circle of friends that
needs to be informed, it's the people that I could potentially meet somewhere.
For instance, I'm part of Debian (although I really ought to officially
retire) and the Apache Software Foundation. There are lists where I can
mention that I'm going to be somewhere, and more often than not, it turns out
there's someone from there who is happy to meet up. Or the other way around:
when people visit Padova (or wherever I happen to be living), I'd be happy to
go out and chat about whatever topic we have in common. I want something that
lets me get in touch, in a casual and no obligations way, with people who I
have something in common with. I suppose that it's never going to be perfect
because you can't force all the people from various lists to sign up for some
service, but I think it could be improved.

~~~
ackkchoo
Hi David -- There are a few sites like that. You could try travbuddy.com if
you are interested in meeting travelers by location or showing them around
your hometown, although it has less of a tech slant. couchsurfing.org has more
of a backpacking focus, but they also have regular meet-ups around the world.

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bmann
As Om Malik said [http://gigaom.com/2009/09/23/dopplr-commits-hara-kiri-
sells-...](http://gigaom.com/2009/09/23/dopplr-commits-hara-kiri-sells-to-
nokia/) \-- this kind of feels like death for Dopplr. Can we name a great
Nokia web service or software?

~~~
icco
I'm hoping mixing dopplr's well designed site with Nokia's resources will
create a powerful site, but this will probably lead to the death of dopplr.

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pclark
I'd love to know what caused so many high profile entrepreneurs to get
involved with Dopplr. Hoffman, joshu, Saul Klein, Martin Varsavsky.

~~~
simonw
I imagine, as people who travel a lot, they found the service extremely
useful. It's also a really classy service, and the founders were well almost
certainly known to the investors already.

~~~
joshu
Exactly.

I'd been thinking of wanting something like this (I thought of it as a "social
network for airports") for a while, so when I heard about it I was interested.

I would hardly call myself "high profile" BTW.

