Mobile Proximity Networking

25Jul07

Now that it is more common for cell phones to have GPS, there is a lot of new opportunity for ideas to leverage this technology. Of course there is the eerie big brother watching you factor, but there is also a lot of room for beneficial concepts.

Mobile Proximity Networking

The idea: Mobile Proximity Networking. For example let’s say we tie this feature in with a platform like facebook. Let’s say I load the simple mobile phone application and it tells me if I have any contacts within the area. This is a great way to connect to friends that also have this feature enabled. I am pretty psyched about that, but then I was sharing the idea with a friend and we were able to bring this idea to the next level.

Now let’s say I select the feature to show me if there are any contacts of my contacts in the area. All the sudden I may be in a coffee shop in a foreign town and find out that woman sitting next to me is in my extended network, and we are only one degree of separation apart and we are connected my by old roommate. All of the sudden I have made a new personal contact and we already have something in common to talk about. Physical social networking broken down to its simplest form and brought to life through a common denominator.

No matter how large and power virtual networks like facebook get, they are always limited by a physical personal relationship. Sure, you can “friend” someone on a network, but there is only a substantial relationship if you have meet them personally. A great friend of mine put it in very simple terms: virtual networks are great for developing and advancing physical introductions and relationships.

There is a lot of opportunity to bring social networks mobile, bringing them closer to live interactions. The introduction of powerful handsets that can handle strong web browsing as well, as GPS functionality make this concept easy to bring to market. I would love some feedback on this concept. Or perhaps even a team to start working on it :)

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