Anyone who’s been reading this blog for more than a few months knows I’m bullish on mobile social networking. The space is wide open at this point – no one has created an application that has gotten enough traction to go mainstream. That’s partly because of tech limitations – browser based networks don’t leverage the power of the mobile device, and client based applications are blocked by service providers and handset limitations. But it’s coming. A few years from now we’ll use our mobile devices to help us remember details of people we know, but not well. And it will help us meet new people for dating, business and friendship. 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. That requires a social network that has presence, location and contextual information about you. It needs to know where you are (via GPS or triangulation), if you are in business or personal mode, and similar information for the people around you. It also needs, at a basic level, the ability to sort and browse the people around you based on their picture and name, and what they are looking for (dating, investments, job, friendship). Once this network is established, you’ll know everyone’s name who’s around you (if they choose to share it), and enough basic information to jog your memory if you know them, or meet them if there’s mutual interest. Poking someone on Facebook is great, but “poking” them when you’re in the same bar as them can result in much more immediate social gratification. The mobile social network that wins will go way beyond, say, Facebook’s iPhone site, which doesn’t leverage location information, or help you meet people around you. So when mobile social network startups reach out to us, we give them a lot of attention. I waded through a bunch of them in September 2007, and followed up with a look at LimeJuice in December. Frankly, MySpace and Facebook could lock up this space simply by focusing on it, but as far as I can tell from discussions with execs at both companies, they’re more focused on → Read More
Stealth startup Hyphen-8 has been beta testing their new mobile social network called Lime Juice in San Francisco since October. Using your phone to create or enhance real world interactions is a killer application, but no one has cracked the nut yet. The reason is that the network is useless until it achieves a critical mass of users who are online and using the application via their mobile phone. If no one else is online, there’s little point in you being online, either. And presence detection is another (technical) problem. Even if people have joined the network, how do you know when they are near you? But once it does happen, look out. You could be in a bar and see who’s single, who thinks you’re cute, who wants to talk to you, etc. (if they choose to share that information). Forget meeting via an online dating site and then organizing an awkward in person meeting that usually falls flat. Instead, you can do the online an real world thing simultaneously. We’ve kept an eye on the new startups launching in this space. Check out Rummble, Mig33, ZYB, Mocospace, Aka-Aki, Nokia Sensor, Dodgeball, Mobiluck, MeetMoi and Imity, just to get warmed up. But none of them yet have critical mass (Mig33, however, is turning into a very large cheap VOIP provider on the side). LimeJuice now joins the group with a unique product. Users can actually join on the fly, via SMS. And the company is sponsoring party after party at bars and clubs in San Francisco to get users to try out the product with lots of others at the same time. The test results are encouraging – people are using it. A lot. How It Works The goal is to allow people in a bar or other social gathering to learn a little about the people around them, and flirt via the mobile network as a way to break the ice. The details are what makes LimeJuice interesting. It’s dead simple to join and use. First, users can register for the service via SMS. That means if just one person in a bar is a member or even knows about the service, they can tell others and quickly get a core group to join. When you create an account, you tell it something distinctive about yourself (tall blonde, red dress!) so that people searching will be able to → Read More
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 → Read More
Any time you try to bridge the real world and the Internet, it’s going to be tough work. When you mix in a questionable business idea and a really poorly designed site, you’re probably heading for the Deadpool. Enter UK based First Move, which just emailed us. It’s a dating site where you create a private profile. You then buy black or hot pink credit-card type cards that have your First Move user code on them – they cost about $2 each. When you see someone you want to date in the real world, you hand the a card and hope they log in, view your profile and contact you. “You Caught My Eye!” is printed on the back of each card. If someone has the guts to approach a person they are attracted to but can only muster up the courage to shove a plastic card in their hand and then run away, they should probably stick to purely virtual meetups where they can be more comfortable before meeting in person. Also, the fact that users have to make a minimum up front payment of $50 to get started with the service is a hurdle so large that I expect very few users to actually try it out. First Move is only superficially a web startup, and anyone who has even a basic understanding of social networking and online dating knows this won’t work. Compare it, for example, with German based Aka-Aki, a mobile service we covered last week that broadcasts information about yourself (picture, dating status, etc.) to the mobile phones of other users around you via bluetooth. The site is three weeks old but has thousands of users in the Berlin area. What would you rather do, hand out plastic cards to people you want to date, or look down at your mobile phone and see a picture of everyone around you that wants you to know they are single? → Read More
Mobile devices remain social networking’s final frontier. There have been a few mobile applications coming out of the established players (Facebook), but social networking on the mobile phone has largely been an area for new entrants. They’ve included Loopt, Bluepulse, Zyb, MocoSpace, and SK telecom’s own Helio. Aka Aki is a relatively new German mobile social networking startup running a private beta in Berlin. They aim to take social networking “to the street” (auf die straße), letting you discover and connect with other members as you go about your daily routine. The service has two components: mobile and web. You can use the site as a standard social network (messaging, friending, etc), but the real differentiator comes from their Java/Bluetooth mobile application. After you set up a profile with some salient details, Aka Aki uses your phone’s Bluetooth to find similar users who come within 20 meters (~65 ft.) of you. Then you can use the application to page through each of these profiles and connect with them. It’s reminiscent of Proxidate, the mobile dating service that alerts you of singles that enter within your Bluetooth’s range. Naturally, the Aka Aki is ideal for people who frequent crowded social spots such as bars, concerts, and parties. However, the model comes with some significant drawbacks. Aka Aki’s can leave phones open to attacks over open Bluetooth connections and the users open to unwanted solicitations as they broadcast their profile everywhere they go. Aka Aki’s 20 meter limit makes it useful for random meetings instead of keeping tabs on friends. It also means you have to find yourself in those crowded spaces with other members fairly frequently to find it useful. → Read More
