ESPOO, Finland – On Friday Nokia announced it bought Plum, a small social network outfit focused more on family and letting you create and manage closer-knit communities. One user on Plum.com, David E, aptly explains, “Plum is like Facebook for my family, but more private and intimate.”
Read on to find out more and to join the social network debate.
Now, acquisitions of this nature often duck the news radar and rarely tend to cause our excitement thermometer to burst, but the purchase of Plum (as with the acquisitions of Bit-side, Plazes, Trolltech and the big one, Navteq), again highlights the sort of innovators and talent Nokia is keenly inviting to the Social Location table.
In this case, what’s interesting is this idea of micro communities and mini social networks. This is the expertise that the team of 10 people from Plum add to the Nokia equation.
This sparks an interesting question related to the size of our individual social networks – are we reaching a threshold now where we begin cutting back on the size of our social network contacts pool? Or do we keep collecting connections, and is the skill then in the segmenting those people and customizing the sorts of experiences we want to share with some groups and not others? Does the blurring of the lines between the personal and professional in these social spaces require more privacy customization? I’m more on the side of the latter, but what a beast to tame! That said, I’d certainly be willing to attempt to whip my social network existence into shape in such a fashion. Would you?
Now, when it comes to trimming back our list of ‘friends’, is that possible when web etiquette surely continues to play a large role here? I’ve never deleted an associate or friend. Not sure if I can, but perhaps it’ll come easier in time, or perhaps I’ll never need to.
Of course, if I start getting deleted by others I may change my tune.
Photo from tomeppy