The Holy Grail For Mobile Social Networks
Michael Arrington
68 comments »
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.
Oh, and there is an RSS feed of your activity available from your profile page - but it needs attention as some items are not coming through well.
The problem with J2ME apps in the US is that it’s very hard to get your app downloaded to the diverse range of phones users have; most phones don’t allow users to just load any J2ME app onto the phone (unless you have a smartphone like Treo). Even the ones that allow users to download to their handsets, your app needs to be “approved” and be in their directory, which could be a lengthy process, and may come with unfavorable revenue sharing scheme. I’m not surprised with the texting approach that some of these companies are doing instead.
Another roadblock is the development cost due to the fragmented nature of the handset market. To target a lot of users, you have to target a lot of handsets, and although technically we’re there (GPS/Triangulation/blue-tooth like you mentioned), the API’s are different on different phones. Although Java holds the promise of “write once, run everywhere”, the JSR’s are usually slow and behind and some handset makers don’t implement all the portions JSR you need, even if they claim they support a JSR.
Some comment on the location-based profile-matching idea itself: I have doubts about whether it would be effective in this country than say Asia/Europe, due to cultural/living environment differences. In Asia the culture is more reserved and I can see this as an aid to striking up a conversation, but I have doubts that American culture is like that. Also most Asian cities are very dense and people commute in the sub-way long hours, during which time this kind of impromtu networking makes sense, but most of the US are sub-urbs, and people commute in their own cars; this kind of app is of little value in that case. More targets environments may be more useful.
I’m very skeptical of the success of any mobile application that requires you to download and install code to use it.
Task switching on my Blackberry is really slow and awful, and so I’m happiest when I can do everything I need in one screen and one web site. At the moment my top 4 apps are mobile web versions of Twitter, Facebook, Ridetrak (bus location) and Grand Central (pbx in the sky). It would be easy to imagine a Twitter interface to Ridetrak with a bot, and easy also to imagine a Twitter interface to Grand Central.
I’ve almost entirely given up on all of the wonderful other Blackberry Google apps, just because it takes entirely too long to task switch between them.
Ed, I agree with both your comments.
An important point is, however, that it’s not about space, but place. Imity doesn’t really care where in the world you are, but who’s around you.
Who’s here right now, and is this maybe someone you know online? Who was at the concert?
The story of two strangers who read eachother’s blogs but meet randomly in a tapas bar in Copenhagen makes me smile any day.
/n
I’m surprised you didn’t mention SixSense.com as one of the previous attempts (and failures) for the “Holy Grail” of mobile social networks.
They launched an app that does exactly what you described several years ago for Smart Phones (http://www.sixsense.com/download_mobile). I ran it on my Audiovox 5600 (a.k.a. ScoblePhone) off and on for a couple years in Dallas, Florida, and Delaware but never found anyone else that was also running it. I suspect the only “critical mass” for the network existed in the SF Bay area.
After switching to a full Windows Mobile PDA (AT&T 8525) I forgot about SixSense until I read this article. Checking their site I was surprised to see that they are still in business but are now targeting desktops via FireFox plugin and seem to have given up on the mobile market. Too fragmented I suspect as many other commentors have mentioned.
another option is to build your own branded mobile community, as Sonopia does.
I believe Loopt will be the strongest company in this space - they will get the distribution.
From judging by the comments, there are a couple of problems:
1. Not enough users even if the technology is out as mentioned by Kevin (post #35)
2. Lateral Integration of different companies for full usage as mentioned by Tony (post #21)
3. The cellphones not being actually good enough to make it a user friendly experience as stated in post 32.
In response to 1. The demographic this technology is trying to grasp is way too big. How many kids have nice enough cellphones, and how many kids are on one of these social networks? How do you market to these kids? How many adults? How do you aggregate all this information? The focus of who we want is just too big. The reason sites like Myspace and Facebook work is because of their focused audience.
In response to 2. With the way the US market works, its hard to think of a way to make these programs easy to use and readily available in your cellphone unless its provider provided. Which won’t happen, unless they take more money from you. (Well, more than necessary.) If a 3rd party does it; for the normal “I know how to get online and download music and watch youtube” demographic its a pain to set it all up. The software itself must be easy to use and navigate, which is a problem with how cellphones are designed right now.
Which leads us to 3. You say we have the technology, but I’d like to see that technology used by a majority of your demographic. (Which we don’t have.) For an ease of use, I’m thinking we need savvy enough smart phones with prominent screens large enough to scroll through without that distinct clicking of a button every 3 lines. Especially if we’re talking about maps, and profiles with pictures and long blurbs about why each person is so special. That’s a big screen. That’s Blackberry, iPhone big. How many people have that technology readily available?
Perhaps the answer is as Tobto says in #36. A company created for lateral movement such as this with a focus on creating that demographic itself. But until then:
A mutli-platform, multi-provider, multi-OS, multi-demographic app that works and succeeds? Good luck.
How pathetic. More human than human. Just identify her G spot, too.
I’m one of the creators of sixsense.com (mentioned by Kevin in #35, thanks!). We actually started working on mobile social networking back in 2003, even before the first smartphone hit the US market (remember the Nokia 3650 anyone?), talk about being early to market! We developed some interesting technology to overcome some of the shortcomings of Bluetooth (i.e. extending the discovery range) but, as others have said before, it didnt take off due to critical density/mass problems. The carriers we talked to (mostly european ones) were mildly interested but not excited enough to pull the trigger back then.
There were several other attempts in this space too that didnt work out, (crowdsurfer, metrospark, even Nokia Sensor), here’s a video from a Discovery Channel show talking about metrospark and the possibilities http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yobcv3tXHb4
We’ve moved on to laptops/desktops as a more uniform platform but we still support our older phone clients. We’ve got plenty of experience to share, so if anyone is interested in more details, send us an email (that goes for the aka-aki guys too!) =)
Everybody can create and distribute their own mobile social network service. Look at http://www.infonu.com. You simply add functions like chatt, newsletter, picture sharing, advertisements, and other features.
get the invitation-code for the aka-aki closed beta:
http://www.gphone-news.de
René
How soon we forget.. With PlaceSite we learned many lessons in this space years ago. I have to differ: there are -huge- technical barriers in the U.S. especially. Or rather, politico/technical barriers. Yes cel-tower triangulation tech exists, but just try to get access to to that tech in an American cel phone as a third party developer. I dare you.
We tried to bypass the cellular service provider stranglehold, and the critical mass barrier (you can’t convince people to install and activate an app of this sort on their phones until lots of other people in their vicinity also have it installed) by using wi-fi captive portal technology, which requires no software installation on the client side.
Our big failure was: we were essentially building sinks and toilets for a city with no plumbing… We expected a blanket of free wi-fi throughout at least cities like San Francisco, New York, Paris etc. by now. PlaceSite was designed to operate on top of such networks.
But in any case.. Two of the biggest lessons learned in this space that should inform your analysis of the players listed in this post are:
1) the chicken/egg problem mentioned above: Don’t expect people to install SNS apps on their devices, and don’t expect them to turn on their bluetooth and leave it on, without either a) having a huge player like Apple package the app and turn it on by default in something like the iPhone, or b) offering some extraordinary incentive for installing the app.
2) using the tech that already exists (SNS, for instance) has proven more successful than attempting to convince folks to use a downloadable app.
oops.. under 2) in the last comment I meant “SMS,” not “SNS…”
I agree wholeheartedly with Sean’s comments. The carriers have a lockdown on cell-tower data, and even if you could access it, you’d have to negotiate access with all the major carriers, not just a few. None of my friends who own cellphones have ever downloaded a java app or know what Bluetooth is.
I dont know about you guys but i seem to be sensing that not eveyone is optpmistic about the mobile social network market. i personally am excited about it and think that things like facebook and myspace are opening doors for compnies like bebo peekamo and twitter. The only thing that has to be done is for people to start using it from their phone. i.s browser capabilities.
http://www.undertheradarblog.c.....ch=2905755
A few years ago a read about a gizmo that did just this (physical presence detection): girls and boys had a gizmo which beeped (i think…?) when it got close to someone with another gizmo and they were a match. Can anyone help me out on this?
thx
Hi guys, I’m the developer for Cityware… its a social networking tool built into facebook which works by detecting bluetooth ‘encounters’ between people…
Read more about it here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6949473.stm
and if you’re interested check it out here
http://apps.facebook.com/cityware/
hi! we’re also new to this mobile social networks. it would be great if you can visit our site and try it out.
it’s still in the beta phase and we’re doing our best efforts for people to try it out and spread the word.
http://www.mobilemo.com
cheers!
Good article,
But you forgot to mention us. Sublimobi is a kiler app for mobile social application (http://www.sublimobi.com) !
Many thanks,
Herve
Reporo (m.reporo.com) is a year old and now has 6,000 UK users (12,000 internationally) on our community java app each day - not huge but growing. The main drawback is the viral effect is very low - mainly because apps are so bloody difficult to spread to your friends; download time then a major failure rate because many mobiles do not have the required internet settings pre-installed i.e. if you sent the app to 4 friends probably 1 would be successful. We’ve just launched a WAP version to deal with this - so hopefully that will sort the technical issues barring viral spread. But of course more important is the desire for people to didtribute a service. Has anybody unearthed the secret ingredient that causes mobile services to spread like wildfire?
The issue of that it is too difficult to deploy Java apps is a misnomer. There are plenty of Java games that have been deployed in very large numbers as well as gimmick utilties for Bluetooth spamming. Java gambling apps that connect to the internet are also successfull here in Europe, MXit has millions of users in South Africa, and MIG33 are claiming the same in the south pacific. For a virus to spread you need a combination of the right environmental conditions e.g. low-cost data and the app needs to catchy; that means really compelling functionality.