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Nokia has bought Plazes for an undisclosed amount. Plazes is a German location-aware social network site,  which basically lets users know where their friends are.

As discussed at mashup*’s Being Digital last week, location is a really hot topic right now, with everyone in the industry having a go at creating a location/mobile/social network mashup (although most do seem to be getting it all wrong!) and this will no doubt increase even further with the iPhone 3G. Predictions can easily be made that whoever is able to master this and create a useful service with an easy to use interface – and most importantly, of course, monetises this – is going to reap in the rewards. Nokia’s acquisition shows that they too are on the path to creating a location-aware service.

While many users are looking forward to use location based services, it appears that many aren’t keen to expose their location and trade in their privacy, and this will inevitably raise concerns for the success of these services. Apparently, Plazes’ CEO Felix Petersen was caught somewhere else than he was supposed to be – and I’m sure many of us wouldn’t like to be put in the situation where our partner/friends/family/colleagues can see where we are all the time. Think about that sneaky ’sick’ day at work when you have tickets to an event that you can’t just can’t miss! Or when you want a quiet, relaxing night in at home, so you tell your friend that you can’t babysit because you are going out. Or when you tell your partner you have to work late, but you go out with your friends instead. (By the way, I don’t do any of these things…they are just examples…)

Whatever users think about location-aware services, they are definitely something that we are going to be hearing a lot more about over the rest of 08.