Nokia targets content sharing with Twango buy

Mobile giant promises 'complete media sharing experience'

Ian Williams, vnunet.com 24 Jul 2007

Nokia is taking aim at the mobile content sharing market with the announcement that it has bought media sharing company Twango.

The Finnish mobile giant said that it has acquired "substantially all assets of Twango", which provides a system for organising and sharing photos, videos and other personal media, similar to web 2.0 sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

"The Twango acquisition is a concrete step towards our vision of seamless access to information, entertainment and social networks at anytime from any connected device in any way you choose," said Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice president and general manager of multimedia at Nokia.

"When you combine a Nokia Nseries multimedia computer with a rich media sharing destination like Twango, people will have exciting new ways to create and enjoy rich media experiences in real time."

As part of the deal, Nokia will be sending a team of its web service experts over to Twango.

Pete Cunningham, a senior analyst at Canalys, told vnunet.com that Nokia's huge user base puts it in a good position to roll out web 2.0 services, and that a seamless integration could significantly improve average revenue per user.

However, the analyst warned that users migrate to their chosen services by themselves or via word of mouth and "will often go where they want to go, and do what they want to do, rather than what large companies may want them to do".

As a result, Nokia may face a user backlash if it attempts to railroad users into using its system rather than allowing to migrate freely.

Nokia is also exploring other media sharing experiences such as combining GPS-based location information with photos and videos.

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