We’ve been tracking emerging mobile-only social networks such as ZYB and Mocospace and Mig33. All have unique selling points (Mocospace is dead simple to use, ZYB has a rich set of potential users from their address book backup service, and Mig33 has a VOIP tool that has attracted over seven million users), but there’s one solid gold feature that none yet have: physical presence detection and information exchange with other users.
This is the Holy Grail of mobile social networking, and one of the main reasons for taking the networks off the desktop/laptop environment in the first place. Imagine walking into a meeting, classroom, party, bar, subway station, airplane, etc. and seeing profile information about other people in the area, depending on privacy settings. Picture, name, dating status, resume information, etc. The information that is available would be relevant to the setting – quick LinkedIn type information for a business meeting v. Facebook dating status for a bar.
Knowing when your friends are around, and having the ability to meet new people who share your interests (even if it’s just that you are both single), will drive massive usage of networks. But, as with many new services, a chicken and egg problem looms. Until everyone is using this, there is no real reason for anyone to use it. Meetro, an instant messaging service that finds friends based on location, has struggled to gain users over the last couple of years for this reason.
Technical barriers aren’t an issue – cell phone tower triangulation and bluetooth solve a lot of the problems of locating users and transmitting information between phones. What’s harder is just plain getting a critical mass of users.
The Failures
There is a trail of failed attempts at getting this right. Nokia released Nokia Sensor nearly three years ago. It broadcasts information about yourself to others via bluetooth. Never heard of it? Neither has anyone else, although it is still available for download. Google’s Dodgeball is another example that’s fallen flat – it tells friends (and friends of friends) who are within 10 blocks of you where you are and what you are doing.
The New Experiments
A bunch of new startups are giving this a shot, too. In a post yesterday TechCrunch UK mentions Germany’s Aka-Aki, Paris-based Mobiluck and MeetMoi (the lone U.S. startup). Another startup is Copenhagen-based Imity. It’s not surprising that most of the innovation is occurring in Europe. The current approach is to get java-based software on the phone – very few U.S. carriers and handsets allow user-based installs of java apps.
Aka-Aki
Aka-Aki, based in Germany, is just a couple of weeks old. Create a profile and download the java app to your phone. You can also create and join groups that say things about your life, job, etc. When you are near other people who are members, data about you is transmitted to them via bluetooth, and vice versa. Users have control over data flow with privacy settings. And the groups supply another layer of privacy. You may transmit that you are single only to other singles, for example. Or share your sexual orientation only with others with the same orientation.
After a silent launch, word is getting out. Thousands of people in Berlin are using the software, and there is a chance for them to get critical mass there with proper marketing. The company has raised a small seed round from FoundersLink and is currently looking for a larger round.
Imity
Copenhagen based Imity, which launched in April, has also been flying under the radar. Like Aka-Aki it detects other members via bluetooth and send basic profile information to your phone. It also keeps track of people on its website, so you can check that out periodically from your normal computer. It’s bridges mobile and traditional social networks, which may help it gain critical mass. Co-founder Nikolaj Nyholm is also behind Polar Rose, a facial recognition and image tagging service.
Imity went open source in February 2007.
MeetMoi
MeetMoi, the only U.S. based service, is most like Dodgeball – it uses text messaging to help connect people. It’s dating focused – text your location to the service and it notifies other users in your area that you are there. If they are interested, they can contact you. The company has raised $1.5 million from Acadia Woods Partners and is based in New York.
MobiLuck
MobiLuck, based in Paris, is another bluetooth solution similar to Aka-Aki and Imity. Download the software to your phone and it vibrates when other users are nearby. You can then chat with them, send photos, etc.
Update: Per a comment below, we’re adding Britekite to the list. We actually covered them briefly last month as part of the TechStars event.
I am surprised at the fact that there is only one candidate from US on the list. I wonder it is because of the fact that we are stuck to sucky cell phones because your sucky service providers have a very sucky list of phones that you have to choose from unlike Europe or Asia. I have seen cell phones while travelling outside US that made me Amish when it comes to cell phone offerings here.
it’s hard to sustain faith, to some degree (if you’re a startup)…if Nokia and Google tried to do it, and failed.
this would be great for bars, and general social settings. no more ice-breaking, if there’s a common connection – your cellphone finds that out for you
Sorry about the off-topic, but “moco” in Spanish means mucus. MucusSpace? Someone should add that one here I guess: http://www.i18nguy.com/translations.html
The chances of raising VC money and success are higher in other areas.
Don’t waste time with Mobile Social Networks.
imagine a social network anchored on the physical internet/computer experience yet completely conducive to mobility… 9 days and counting.
There is another stealth product readying launch in the U.S. from a company called Hyphen-8. It enables location based social networking in a completely new and novel way with mobile phones. This product has no technical barriers to achieving critical mass like the others mentioned. Worth keeping an eye out for…
Combined presence detection / social networks would be awesome. I could walk into a bar and see a list of the chicks on the dance floor and sort them by their easyness rating. That would definitely save time in figuring out myself, eliminate endless chitchat about nothing and buying drinks with nothing in return. Now thats putting web 2.0 to good use.
Too bad it wasn’t release when I was single.
We’re another candidate that you can add to that list (and yes, we’re based in the US). We haven’t launched yet, but this is the exact thing that we’re attempting to solve.
Check out our blog at http://blog.brightkite.com
LOL Bob post 7 nails it! The easiness rating, awesome.
The guys from the failed real time streaming application development company HillCast Austin Texas, had just such an app in development 2003/2004 I think it was.. They called it the hooker app as a joke, because you always wanted to know which ladies at the bar in the Sheraton in NYC were the hookers.
I wonder what happened to that code?
How about Plazes? Plazes has been around for a while now. They have an SMS interface as well as applets for Windows and Mac users.
@Bob — Reading your comment, I find it hard to believe you’re not still single. Just sayin’.
Wait to see iPhone popular to launch mobile SNS.
I for one am kind of glad the US isn’t yet totally obsessed with buying new handsets and all that goes with it every year.
After spending some time in Japan I found it rather creepy and sad to watch teen after teen walking down the street staring and thumbing wildly at their phone directly in front of their face not even watching anything around them. Sort of reminds me of the zombies from those old “day of the dead” flicks.
Interesting. You forgot to mention Playtxt, J2ME, uses location and connects users to several IM networks at a time including Yahoo and MSN. Jabber based. Has been around for months.
Presence and pinpoint geographical locations are overrated.
A killer app in mobile social networking is declaration of intent. “I’m going to Arbor Brewing” is much more useful than “I’m at work”. No amount of fancy geolocation is going to tell you where you’re going to go next.
You don’t mention Twitter, but the mobile version of Twitter is great, and especially great for gathering a crowd when the twitter-density in your world is high enough. It lets you announce as much or as little geo information as you choose.
Pinpoint geography sucks when people notice a little too often where you are. I’ve mostly turned off Plazes for that reason.
We have also in Italy an upcoming project for Social Communication Mobile 2.0- it’s MVNO.it, http://www.mvno.it
the project today is still in beta (will be presented in a month or two for the public). But it’s gonna be an MVNO + a Research Lab for Social Communication 2.0 services. follow the updates from MVNO.it!
Good Luck also to us, right?
Kind Regards,
Andrey
http://www.milanin.com/members/andrey.golub/
I’m the marketing director for MobiLuck. We offer more than just the bluetooth application mentioned here. People can connect from any cell phone in the world with a web or WAP browser to our community at wap.mobiluck.com to share where they are with friends, chat, and find interesting people and places nearby for free – and it doesn’t require you to download an application.
What ever happened to going up to a woman at a bar and saying hello? Don’t get me wrong, as @Bob said it would help with an “easyness” factor, but it takes away from the game of life. Also, this has a stalkerish feel to it if you go up to someone and say, “hey, your cell phone just pinged me”
@Ron(#5) would be interested to hear more about College Tonight.
Interesting… if there are no barriers to doing it technically, then why is it the holy grail?
It’s a problem that doesn’t need a technology solution.
What about CityWare on facebook? That is almost there, I don’t see it being far off at all and it already has some awesome features.
If Mobile Social Networking takes off it will be because of vertical integration with devices via provider (Verizon, ATT) or manufacturer (Apple, Blackberry) or a new entrant to the Mobile space via 700 MHz (Google, Microsoft, etc).
@Gavin Checked out their site but before I register, can you tell me more about their facebook application? What does it do exactly?
http://www.iRovr.com/ is an ultra-mobile community for Apple’s iPhone. We’re rapidly growing and our members are borderline fanatical/obsessive. While at this stage we might be a niche within a niche, one can argue the impending dominance of the iPhone as the ultimate “smart phone” will guarantee a future for our community.
If you have an iPhone, you must check out iRovr… it is must be experienced to be understood.
I don’t know how this is different from mobile facbook for example. I use my iPhone to access facebook and Orkut(which is a normal website). It is not long before when all the mobile browsers render the pages like Safari. So you don’t need mobile social networks. People are already on facebook, bebo, myspace, orkut. They would access the same sites from their mobile phones and the purpose of mobile only social networking will go down.
Blueapple.mobi is another site that seems to be picking up steam very rapidly. While a video search tool right now, the possibilities for streaming video from the regular internet onto the mobile devices seems interesting.
techmine -
Mobile facebook doesn’t allow you to do much of anything at all. While it’s very slick and pretty, it does not provide for a fully realized mobile experience. Another thing that makes iRovr unique is it’s media-rich “stream” on the home page. A lot of our members prefer this model of social networking to the vast sea of loosely connected people that the larger networks are made of.
While I agree with you that the iPhone is the best device for accessing websites in the same fashion as a desktop user might, the best experience on the iPhone is when the site is tailored for the device. For instance, Mobile Safari does not allow one to select a file for uploading, EDGE data rates are slow and the process of logging in, zooming and panning and ultimately being limited to text only communications can become frustrating.
iRovr solves this problem by making email it’s primary means of interacting with the community. There is a set of 5 emails you use to submit new blogs, photos, video links, bookmarks and update your profile. You don’t even have to visit the site to submit new information. If you do happen to visit the site, you never have to pinch, double tap to zoom or any of that mess. It feels much more natural on the device than any other social network and you can do more.
iRovr!
Jaiku mobile client
Erik – Is it true that iRovr is only for iPhone and not somebody having other advanced phones like Nokia N95 or Sony Ericsson P1i?
I checked out the site and it looks nice and idea is also nice behind it. But my friends are on the sites i mentioned. How do they access my content?
For now, iRovr is geared for iPhone. Of course, we do not block non-iPhone users, but we do suggest one use Safari 3 Beta to ensure it looks proper. We have a FLEX AIR desktop client in development that will transcend the device and browser.
We are but a team of 3 making this happen, so resources are limited. If I had access to each major smartphone I would most definitely tune the content and functionality to support. We’re in to win, but our strategy at this point is to try to ride the hype wave of the iPhone as far as we can.