Mobile social network Loopt goes live on three AT&T phones today, which was the last major carrier holdout. Loopt is now available in the U.S. on Sprint, Verizon, Metro PCS, T-Mobile and Boost. The service is free for a year and then a $4/month fee kicks in.
You can get Loopt for free on the iPhone (and there is a TechCrunch version), the Blackberry and Android as well.
We’re big believers that mobile is the future of social networking. Loopt and a handful of other brave startups are pushing the envelope on mobile social networks while the big guys, Facebook and MySpace, sit on the sidelines.
A big reason they’re hesitant – privacy concerns. Both companies have had their run ins with the press and state attorneys general. Mobile social network is all about location, and finding people around you. That’s not where Facebook and MySpace want to go right now.
That leaves room for Loopt and others to grab market share. These services allow users to update their location and share it with others. People who are on the network can contact you, if you choose, just because of where you are even if they don’t know you.
One feature that hasn’t hit the iPhone yet is auto-updating of location. But it appears to be on AT&T’s general rollout on other phones. I’d expect to see it released soon on the iPhone as well. That means that, theoretically, your friends can find out where you are (if the feature is turned on) on demand. yes, there are big privacy issues there, but it’s also the future.
Disclosure: Loopt is in the middle of a patent litigation suit, and the plaintiff in that case dragged us into the middle of the fight.
Great… if you’re gay
. Loopt is a premiere gay hookup app! It’s an interesting niche… not sure how popular Loopt will be in Southern US though…
http://dailytec...up-application/
I use Loopt (there are a million users now) and whenever I go to a new city I update my location. There are always a ton of people around with location awareness turned on. As the network grows it will become even more interesting.
Mike,
Point taken. But I’m sure you’d get higher quality people to meet with you if you used Twitter or Facebook to say where you are!
I mean, do you really wanna get IMs from total strangers? And I know you’re not gay either… so what’s the point really?
I didn’t know you were gay.
Arrington:
The world eagerly awaits your deposition.
Tough guy, right?
Nope. More like soft serve ice cream.
From Wikipedia:
A shill is an associate of a person selling goods or services or a political group, who pretends no association to the seller/group and assumes the air of an enthusiastic customer. The intention of the shill is, using crowd psychology, to encourage others unaware of the set-up to purchase said goods or services or support the political group’s ideological claims. Shills are often employed by confidence artists. In the UK the term plant is also used. Shill bidding, found on many auction sites such as eBay is punishable by law[citation needed] and may result in fines and or prosecution.
Shilling is illegal in many circumstances and in many jurisdictions because of the frequently fraudulent and damaging character of their actions. However, if a shill does not place uninformed parties at a risk of loss, but merely generates “buzz”, the shill’s actions may be legal. For example, a person planted in an audience to laugh and applaud when appropriate (see “claque”), or to participate in on-stage activities as a “random member of the audience”, is a type of legal shill.
“Shill” can also be used pejoratively to describe a critic who appears either all-too-eager to heap glowing praise upon mediocre offerings, or who acts as an apologist for glaring flaws. In this sense, they would be an implicit “shill” for the industry at large, as their income is tied to its prosperity.
Are you really going to quote wikipedia for an argument? Try a little harder next time
i hear founders are gay.
he probably is i always see him in pink but what does sam being gay have to do with loopt. or this article.
“mobile social network is all about location”.
everything on the internet and mobile is about location. some got it, some dont.
LocationExpert – find it
I would have to say Mike Arrington’s appetite eclipses both his arrogance and hubris combined.
Christ: you can’t fit the guy in a picture frame.
Mike: am I wrong. You’re fucking fat, right?
cool app to find friends around you, but I also concern with its privacy
personally i don’t find these individual social networking apps all that interesting. to me, the phone is the social network app, everything else is just gravy on top.
“One feature that hasn’t hit the iPhone yet is auto-updating of location. But it appears to be on AT&T’s general rollout on other phones. I’d expect to see it released soon on the iPhone as well.”
I haven’t seen anything from AT&T or iPhone on auto-updating location. If there is anything out there, I’d be grateful if someone could point me to it.
One of the most overhyped apps ever…
I don’t see this really taking off…
Maybe this sounds crazy…but is there any consideration of them possibly doing an OpenSocial implementation?
Mike,
What if you go the other way? Loopt’s growth has always been tempered by privacy concerns due to being able to get contacted by any one who can find you by gps,
What if its was settable, ie only by friends-on-list or all?
Sounds like I have anew feature of Xspot..:)
LOOPT COMES OUT OF THE CLOSET!!
I love this service – its my personal GAYDAR. All my boys have been using it for a while now – its just wonderful. Thank you Sam for building this and I hope to see you around sometime!
Honestly, Loopt is a HUGE let down. The commercial is better than the app.
Arrington is gay?
Loopt is pretty cool… in Seattle. In St. Louis it’s mostly useful for finding the other 3 people that use it.
LOL.. are they gay?
Now that you mention it, quite a few of them are. Maybe it really is secretly a gay dating network masquerading as a 2.0 professional tool…
LOL
why we have to pay $4/year when there are many services are available free of cost like http://fonet.mobi/
Shouldnt the title say the Loopt is available on every Major US Carrier not ever US Carrier
I’ve tried both. Earthcomber is far superior. It automatically updates. Loopt does not.
It’s not even close.
join the discussion @
http://www.real...yforums/304526/
Mobile is the future of social networking, the question is who is going to pay the bill (mobile=money). There are more than a handful of LBSN. I compiled a list of more than 50 in my blog http://www.BDNooz.com. BTW I’ve seen many applications that already integrate as a Location Service as a feature inside FaceBook. So you we can say FaceBook has that capability.
I might not know Earthcomber but at least they don’t go publicly insulting the defendants using a link to Wikipedia. It shows your level of maturity, dude. So I will NEVER use Loopt!