

Thoughts on Physical Social Networking (hello my name is E) - PStamatiou
http://paulstamatiou.com/2008/06/18/thoughts-on-physical-social-networking

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richesh
There was a company back in the 1st boom that was making apparels and other
gear with your "ID" printed on it boldly. And you could take someone's ID and
put it on the site and communicate with that person. Seemed like a roundabout
way of just walking up to the person and saying "hello my name is E".

But to answer your question, a hardware-aided webapp could take off if it was
backed by the right "webapp". If facebook, linkedIn, Match, etc. came out with
a hardware (although why wouldn't you just write an iPhone app nowadays), that
facilitated physical social networking then it might work. Although IMO,
people still like to keep a difference between their online and offline lives.

We are going to see a large numbers of mobile social networking companies in
the next few years. It is the only logical next step for social networks, to
go from in front of computers to location aware.

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cbryan
I think it could work, but I think it would have to marketed differently.
Right now it seems aimed towards the twenty-something web developer who might
be more casual. I think there's an equally large opening for a device like
this marketed towards more traditional businessmen. Replace the Rolodex, make
migrating to social networking apps easier, etc.

The device is certainly a limitation too. Maybe think about ways it could be
implemented as a mobile phone app? The hardware infrastructure for mobile apps
already exists, and people are already comfortable with it. Bluetooth would be
nice, but I don't know how easy it is to leverage that sort of technology.

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PStamatiou
I had the same thoughts about mobile phone app implementation but there would
no doubt be some large issues to overcome. Not all phones can have apps, etc,
not everyone has bluetooth..

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seiji
Phone apps have a few problems:

* How many models and manufacturers and OS revisions for phones are there? Do you have time to create and support 80 versions of your application?

* No phone can communicate peer-to-peer, so you are reliant on the carrier network or if you are lucky, 802.11abgn access.

* Phones are locked down. Even the glorious iPhone has a direct reference forbidding peer-to-peer applications in the developer docs.

* Even if all of the above was feasible, extremely few people would install your application on their phone. Sorry.

All the above hassle leads to companies such as Brightkite saying "screw it,
we're going to use SMS and webpages to be dodgeball++"

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PStamatiou
I posted this here to ask - can a hardware-aided web app really take off?
Seems like it's just a limitation, regardless of application. Imagine if your
OpenID account asked you for a 6-digit RSA key token everytime you logged in?
Okay I take that back, that'd be pretty neat.

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seiji
We're doing almost the same thing (except better).

We considered going with a no-screen-sync-at-your-computer model, but it's not
useful for very much.

The version we came up with enables arbitrary direct peer-to-peer
communication within a few hundred feet (or larger distances with our mesh
routing). We gave it a handheld form-factor with its own screen and network
connectivity too.

We're working on driving the price down and making it as small as possible but
still usable.

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PStamatiou
do you have a company name that's public?

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seiji
We are genetic gestures, inc (as is in my profile). Looks like I should get
around to updating the website with details of our upcoming product.

