Four years after buying Plazes, Nokia axes pioneering location-based social network

Nokia has just sent out an email to users of location-based social network Plazes – though I can’t imagine there were many users still using it – to inform them that the service will be shut down as soon as next week.

Plazes allowed users to post their location and activities, and share this information with other Plazes users via the Web or smartphones.

Plazes was originally co-founded in 2004 by German entrepreneurs Felix Petersen (currently founding CEO of mobile app startup Amen) and Stefan Kellner (now founder of photo sharing service 7Moments).

It attracted investments from angel investors Marc Andreessen, Esther Dyson and Martin Varsavsky, and VC firm Doughty Hanson, before its exit to Nokia.

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Nokia acquired the German startup behind Plazes back in June 2008 for an undisclosed sum. The Finnish company will be moving everything over to its Maps service as of next week, and will soon after give remaining users the ability to sync their Plazes favorites with Nokia Maps from their phones.

Here’s the email that was sent to users:

“Thanks for being part of Plazes. We hope you enjoyed the journey, past or present.

The time has come to say farewell, and next week, Plazes will go out of service.

From next week, you can go to Plazes.com and move your history to Nokia Maps. Your plazes will become favourites on Nokia Maps for your PC or Mac. Shortly after next week, you’ll also be able to sync your favourites with Nokia Maps on your phone.

If you like, you’ll also be able to download and save a history file containing all your activities and plazes.

With Nokia Maps, you can search for interesting places and find your way there with walking, driving and public transport directions. And if you find somewhere new on your travels, you can add it to the map, write reviews, post a rating and add photos.

If you have any questions, please contact Nokia Support.

Kind regards

Your Plazes Team”