Following Michael’s post the other day about the future of social networking, we have heard of several more ways the mobile, location-aware nut is being cracked already.
One of these is an “experiment” by MyBlogLog started at eTech and SXSW that leverages Bluetooth technology to discover the people around you. The Java-based service, previously named “Meetspace” but now known as MBL Mobile, works on both Bluetooth-enabled laptops and Blackberrys.
Once you’ve installed the Java applet and bound your Bluetooth ID to your MyBlogLog ID, you will be able to see other MyBlogLog members within a range of about 30 feet who have also opted into the special service. Their avatars show up on a page that breaks people down into “People Around You” and “People Encountered Most”, the former being those currently detected near you and the latter being those you’ve found yourself near the most. You can click on users to see their activity streams and commonly shared groups.
This service obviously works best when you have a group of geeks huddling around the same areas, such as conference halls. As Marshall Kirkpatrick pointed out on RRW, it also has privacy implications that should give MyBlogLog users pause before they sign up.
For other companies working on location-aware social networking technologies, check out Imity, Mobiluck, Aka Aki, and Loopt. The first three, like MyBlogLog, use Bluetooth-based detection whereas Loopt depends on GPS. LimeJuice and MeetMoi are two similarly intended startups that only require SMS. In the long run, GPS is probably the best technology for this sort of thing (provides much greater range and detail than Bluetooth), but unfortunately lots of phones don’t have GPS capabilities yet.
Also see our posts on an iPhone-only social network and the holy grail for mobile social networks.
The problem with bluetooth and GPS being on all the time is that they both suck the battery power. No real reason to keep them on when your phone is in your pocket
Most people keep bluetooth on in their pocket because they want to be able to use their headset.
Someone needs to put endless advertising dollars into this before it takes off.
There have been half hearted attempts at similar things since the late 90s, in mobile gaming and dating, for example.
That said, if this is the magic service that makes mobile location based services suddenly close the gap between potential and reality, all the better.
neat error
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Guru Meditation:
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Varnish
I wish they would speed up mybloglog. Maybe it’s just opera, but it also loads very slowly
That sounds & looks very cool.
We’ll try to do better based on the giant pda (ie., the Google App Engine)…
I just don’t get the point of thigns like this. Why would I ever want to know if there are other MyBlogLog users within 30 feet of me? It’s not like I’m going to get a notification about it and then shout out – “Ok, who here uses MyBlogLog?” and then the person who does responds and then I’m like “Yo wasssup” and then hang out with them and become friends.
No, that is completely illogical and would never happen, to me or anyone.
Mybloglog has the right idea just too specific of a genre. This is geeky ass hell to me and i just don’t see this working unless you are in some convention with nothing but geeks ..I would love to see if this could ever work in Clubs, Like if you in a Bar and its crowded and you get a incoming profile view request on your phone cause somebody saw it on there phone looking for people that has that feature turned on.
bang and there you have a nice system cause i never know who likes me in the Night club.
I just find this concept creepy. Sitting anonymously in a cafe and people around me bringing up my profile and seeing that I’m 50 lbs heavier in real life. No thanks!
Nokia Sensor, DOdgeball, ePresence, and many others have tried this, but they didn’t have any users to start with and that is MBL’s advantage. I agree that the idea may not appeal to many, but it could appeal to enough people to matter.
@sean (#8), You dont have to, “…then shout out – ‘Ok, who here uses MyBlogLog?’ ” You can message them first to see if there’s interest or check their profile pic to identify. Keep in mind that i dont use MBL, blogs, or any other social network and im certainly not part of the target market, but you need to keep to your analytics stuff which you hopefully understand better.
@chris (#11), Interesting, you just prefer to pose as one thing online and simply never meet these ‘efriends’? It is a sad world if there are many others like you.
Thanks for the great post Mark. It is much appreciated.
MyBlogLog Mobile has been a fun first experiment in the mobile space. It has given us a lot of additional ideas that we are starting to play with — such as Fire Eagle location integration & proximity notifications.
We hope to have more pushed out the door soon.
Cheers,
Todd Sampson
Co-founder, MyBlogLog
Come on TC… how about Buddy Beacon?
MyBlogLog Mobile has been a fun first experiment in the mobile space. very nice
Ok, who here uses MyBlogLog?
Mobile Social Networking won’t make it out of the valley…normal people can actually socialize without some kind of technology involved.
I feel bad for the VC that dumps a ton of cash into this only to see it never catch on outside of tech circles. Or worse a women on the “mobile social network” gets followed home by a creeper using it with bad intentions.
http://startupb...-is-not-for-me/
Sounds like a neat idea… a good start…
What about Buddy Beacon? I use it on my Sprint phone through the WHERE GPS application and can share my location with friends on different carriers. There is also a Facebook application that’s pretty cool. It lets you update your status on your FB page and share your location.
I would like to buy eTrex GPS Navigator for my Buddy Beacon.
Using this option in mybloglog could mean an encroachment of your privacy. What is someone has been stalking on you online? And wanted to harass you offline? You are just 30 feet away, remember.
This was announced at eTech, here’s the video: http://develope...loglog_api.html
hackers ahoy – new toy and new game courtesy of mybloglog! no i dont’ own the website linked myself to but it’s THE hackers’ fest that’s coming like, TMRW!!!
MobiLuck started out with a Bluetooth-based social network but we realised its limitations very quickly – such as battery drain, fear of spamming and viruses, short detection range and therefore high concentration of users required to make it worthwhile. We believe the best way to get this to work is to bring a mix of technologies into play, ranging from a simple manual click on an often visited place to bluetooth and wifi detection, CellID and GPS location. That way the user base is not limited by their phone technology. With mobile internet as the glue, the service is then opened up to everyone who has access to the mobile internet. Then it all comes down to targeting the different segments of users that stand to benefit from location based social networking. There are many specific use cases that are very compelling, none of which include geeks huddling around a bluetooth zone…
As TC didnt mention us in the list (oh we’re always left out! sob sob) we’ll do it ourselves – Rummble. Supports Web of course, and on mobile: SMS, WAP/XHTML mobile site and soon GPS and CellID; although the latter is still in closed beta for now.
We could chuck in Bluetooth but the battery power is the problem as someone else noted; and until we have zillions of users its not that usual really.
The Japanese have a much cooler system–been around for years–that beeps when you are near someone with a compatible blood type. They use that for dating like we used to do astro’ signs…
lemme think: find a cute date or head for wireless Starbucks with pale, frail geek and talk about RSS feeds…hmm…
It’s a great idea. Well, it may not be as significant an application but still, building such service would bring about more possibilities, further merging our real lives with the virtual one online:) nice.
Sad to say but m.mybloglog.com has been taken offline. As much as we’d like to continue to iterate on what we’ve started, we’re a small team and this project was an experiment to generate discussion (and that it did!) and not something core to our roadmap.
We’re trying to find a home for the project so if you’re a fan, leave further comments to let Yahoo folks know of your interest!
Ian
MyBlogLog Product Guy