Mobile 2.0 Mobile Social Networks

    Pretty old article but I think it will be interesting to read.

    Today I want to talk about mobile social networks. In the West, the term MoSoSo is popular - mobile social software (mobile social software). It is somewhat strange that the word software is mentioned, however, to participate in many mobile social networks, you need to download a special application that will provide the opportunity to communicate within this network to use its capabilities. Since a mobile phone is able to communicate with the outside world in many ways , there are several different types of social networks (after all, it is probably more correct to speak in the Western manner of social mobile software). These networks make it possible to determine the position of a network participant and exchange messages.
    • The very first and most famous mobile social network is dodgeball.com, which appeared already in gray-haired 2000 and was bought by Google in 2005. In 2006, an analogue of catchup.ru appeared in Russia, but somehow it still does not go out of closed testing. By the way, I will describe the principles of operation of these and subsequent mobile social networks solely from the descriptions that I read on the Internet, since I managed to register (and install the application) in only one network. In networks such as dodgeball.com, a network participant getting to a certain place indicates the network (via SMS, wap site or application) about where he is located (strange, city, place in the city (cafe, restaurant, movie theater, etc.)), then taking this location into account, he can search for network members who are nearby. A network user can send a message to those network participants who are nearby (via SMS, wap site or application) and then act at their discretion (to meet, chat, and so on). As in any social network in mobile social networks, each user also has a profile, usually they indicate their basic data (name, age, gender), descriptions of themselves and those people that you would be interested in. There is also the opportunity to make friends. All these features allow you to conduct a very flexible search for interlocutors, you can search for everyone who is within a certain radius of you, you can only make friends, you can ask the network to show only those network members who satisfy your characteristics (for example, look for girls with a pancake and big breasts who are now in your area))).
    • Quite an interesting concept in the German network plazes. The network is built on communication through wi-fi access points, and each of the points has constant coordinates, therefore, having determined through which point the person connects, you can tell where he is. This network, however, is probably not for phones, since so far very few of them support wi-fi, but for laptops and PDAs.
    • The next type of mobile social software uses Bluetooth for communication. I think the principle is clear, the application scans for available Bluetooth devices and allows phone owners to correspond and exchange business cards. Search for network users is possible in automatic mode, that is, as soon as a user (anyone, friend or with certain profile characteristics) appears within the Bluetooth visibility range, the phone can send signals. By the way, it seems like there is a service called it seems bluelove, it allows you to search for partners for sex, as soon as there are two people with mutually satisfying profiles, the phones of both make the same stupid sound, which makes it possible to become the first topic of conversation among shy people (hunting is ashamed to come up))) people. The advantage of this kind of communication is that you do not need to manually set your position. The downside is that you interact only with the topic of people who are at a certain small distance from you. Also, the problem is that far from all phone models, programs are suitable because of the peculiarities of implementing Bluetooth technology in different phones.
    • Well, while the least used method for organizing mobile social networks (although the most functional) is the use of gps navigation. Everything is extremely simple here - you do not need to set your location manually and all network participants have at each moment in time more or less certain coordinates, regardless of the distance to you. The main problem is that wifi gps navigators are also not very common on phones. However, some networks offer to buy a starter kit for working on the network at a super price (like some kind of Motorola for $ 45), though only for residents of the United States.

    The ideal option is when the location is determined using gps. Communication is possible both through the server of the network itself and at close proximity via Bluetooth, for exchanging photos and videos for example. This is about the technical aspects of interaction (location and information transfer). Now for the features provided to users. Two main points are search and profile .
    A profile is a projection of a real person, that is, it allows you to get a certain minimum of information necessary to continue communication. It is clear that friends do not go anywhere, that is, user associations according to a certain principle - personal acquaintance, common interests. By the way, the profile helps to find out the current location of friends - the profile should have the ability to display the person’s current position and status (ready to talk, busy, in general, like in Internet pagers).
    And the search allows you to find new friends, that is, the search makes it possible to search for a person by his location and profile content. It seems to me that the main difference between mobile social networks and social networks on the Internet is that it is based on the principle of human mobility, which means that a person is not looking for information, but looking for people who are nearby to meet with them at this particular moment.
    These networks are not for finding penpals, but for looking for friends (or not friends at all)) to do something right here and right now )

    The original is on my blog .

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