Nokia thinking of befriending Facebook

The big rumour doing the rounds this week is that Finnish handset giant Nokia is looking to buy a stake in social networking website Facebook.

Although Nokia is cultivating its own social networking site, Mosh, as part of its Ovi mobile services initiative, it appears that a deal is underway that will see Facebook plastered across the screens of hundreds of thousands of handsets worldwide.

Facebook already has a mobile site, but such as partnership would get it installed onto devices at the factory level, giving the community platform a strong foothold in the mobile market.

Some reports say that Facebook would also be given high profile exposure on point of sale displays at the handset giant’s retail outlets, suggesting that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is playing hardball and potentially getting a good deal with Nokia.

By buying up a stake in the company, Nokia would be getting into bed with Microsoft, which paid out $240m for a 1.6 per cent stake in the site in October, valuing Facebook at around $15bn.

The Finnish firm would also join Canadian vendor Research In Motion (RIM), which made Facebook available to BlackBerry users late last year.