Nokia shopping social media companies – Fact & Rumor

According to numerous official and unofficial rumors, lot of activity has been going on around Nokia HQ in Espoo lately.

Many people working with great ideas have been seen to visit the Nokia House, but very few knew why. Thanks to the great social media bulletins, there are some facts and rumors to be shared.

A pure fact is that Nokia announced that they are buying OZ Communications, a Montreal based IM company. Read the press release here.

On the rumor side, Jaiku and Twitter are proposing that Nokia would also buy Zipipop, the Finnish creator of Zipiko mobile service. Zipicom people are denying the rumor, but there must be something to it.

Apparently the rumor started  from this Canadian tweet combined with this and this Jaiku stream. Zipicom CEO Helene Auramo is denying this rumour on both Twitter and Jaiku.

It will be also interesting to see what ArcticStartup, the leading startup resource in Northern Europe, will say about this rumor.

A lot seems to be happening in Helsinki start up scene. Let’s keep the channels open.

Changing focus

Like you may have noticed, I’ve been quite quiet here lately. There is a good reason for that. I’ve taken up a new innovative project from the construction industry. Earlier this spring we started a new business, which is taking a big part of my time. If you want to see how our new business Riqq Innovations is proceeding, you can find more information through Riqq website or Construction Data blog.

This doesn’t mean that Ekana would disappear.

Ekana still does interesting projects, seeking first-in-the-industry solutions. So far we have some very interesting experiences related to design, fashion, restaurants, retail, construction and new sofware business concepts.

We are also interested in offering marketing/strategy/business planning support for emerging startups. And that’s not for money, but for passion.

If you have good and exciting projects, let us know… 😉

I have personally been very active with different social media and mobile concepts lately. Finland is bubbling with so many interesting concepts and startups… I just love to use all the different services, but also to actively network with people building the new services.

Couple of examples from Finland:

• Zipiko  – A short term meeting arrager service
• Joikuspot – Mobile connection sharing
• Scred – Community cost-balancing (trust network)
• BusinessPort – Online project management service
• TripSay – A travel community

I will also keep on blogging in Finnish in my Kauppalehti blog Emmekö Me Ymmärrä? and couple of other blogs.

Now, after writing this update, I don’t have to worry about not writing here… Right?