Weplug Social Network Launches: Where’s the Beef?
Weplug is a new social networking site out of France that aims to combine the best parts of Twitter, Facebook, and geo-location. The site has just entered public beta, and is available on the iPhone at the same URL.
Weplug has a clean interface and full featured (if somewhat generic) social networking functionality. Users can add their current status and location to a “lifestream” (basically a list of recent activity), which is syndicated to others through “friendstreams”. It’s all pretty familiar stuff for anyone that’s used Facebook for any length of time, but there are a few key differences.
For one, Weplug promises to release an API that will make its micro-blogging platform accessible to outside programs and devices (think Twitter). Weplug also plans to include auto-location features on its iPhone version of the site. Auto-location doesn’t work yet, but Weplug’s developers intend to use the iPhone’s triangulation feature (and eventually GPS, when it becomes available).
The site is still very much a work in progress. The basic social networking functionality works well enough, but the promised autolocation feature and Twitter-esque API are still a ways off. It’s hard to gauge how well Weplug will do abroad, but to stand a chance stateside its going to need to implement these features soon. As it stands now, Weplug is a nice looking site that few people have a reason to use.
Weplug sprawls a number of well-established spaces. Their competition includes Loopt in the social GPS market, Twitter in micro-blogging, and a plethora of social networking sites.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
I Saw The Future Of Social Networking The Other Day
Anyone who’s been reading this blog for more than a few months knows I’m bullish on mobile social networking.
The space is wide open at this point - no one has created an application that has gotten enough traction to go mainstream. That’s party because of tech limitations - browser based networks don’t leverage the power of the mobile device, and client based applications are blocked by service providers and handset limitations.
But it’s coming. A few years from now we’ll use our mobile devices to help us remember details of people we know, but not well. And it will help us meet new people for dating, business and friendship. 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.
That requires a social network that has presence, location and contextual information about you. It needs to know where you are (via GPS or triangulation), if you are in business or personal mode, and similar information for the people around you. It also needs, at a basic level, the ability to sort and browse the people around you based on their picture and name, and what they are looking for (dating, investments, job, friendship). Once this network is established, you’ll know everyone’s name who’s around you (if they choose to share it), and enough basic information to jog your memory if you know them, or meet them if there’s mutual interest. Poking someone on Facebook is great, but “poking” them when you’re in the same bar as them can result in much more immediate social gratification.
The mobile social network that wins will go way beyond, say, Facebook’s iPhone site, which doesn’t leverage location information, or help you meet people around you.
So when mobile social network startups reach out to us, we give them a lot of attention. I waded through a bunch of them in September 2007, and followed up with a look at LimeJuice in December.
Frankly, MySpace and Facebook could lock up this space simply by focusing on it, but as far as I can tell from discussions with execs at both companies, they’re more focused on each other than in dominating the mobile space. That creates an incredible vacuum for a startup.
Start With The iPhone
In February I wrote a post called “Will There Be A (Successful) iPhone-Only Social Network?” and presented an argument that the iPhone SDK presented a compelling opportunity to launch a mobile social network while avoiding the chicken and egg problem that any new network, and particularly a mobile network, would encounter. iPhone penetration in Silicon Valley, and among early adopters, is so high that the application could spread virally among those communities. As the network gains traction, it could expand to Google’s Android platform and grow from there.
iPhone users are the perfect group to launch the network to. They’re passionate and elitist, and will like the idea of being in an iPhone-only club. Go to a party and see a picture and first name of everyone there who’s holding an iPhone - then meet them and add them as friends. Then, once mutual friendship is established, see those people wherever they are in the world, along with presence information telling you what they’re thinking, or up to.
I believe in the idea so much that I explored putting together a team to build a basic network on top of the iPhone SDK. But I abandoned that idea last week when I saw a live demo, on the iPhone, of an upcoming social network that does everything I called for in that February post.
It’s Coming
The startup behind the new application won’t let me disclose their name yet. But the application is awesome. It shows you everyone around you who has it installed on an iPhone (default privacy is set to off, but can be changed). Users can scroll through nearby users, and set filters for men, women or age ranges. If you find someone interesting you can pull up their profile and ping them. If they respond you can start a chat, on the phone or in person. Of course, they can also choose to block you.
Location is based on the triangulation feature of the iPhone, which is accurate enough to get this going. And the startup thinks they’ve found a way around the fact that third party iPhone applications can’t run in the background (meaning you’d have to have the application open, and not use any other iPhone features, to run the social network and see others). They explained the work around in general terms to me, but asked that it remain confidential for now.
As I said, I saw the app running on an iPhone and even the early prototype left me speechless. It will, I believe, prove to be very popular, and very valuable.
The image shows a mockup of the functionality I saw working live on the phone (I should be able to show a photo or video of it running in the next week or two as well). Look for a launch when the iPhone app store opens this summer.
Credit for that awesome image at top of post is to Hank Grebe at MediaSpin.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Loopt Embraced by Verizon; Starts to Spread Its Wings
Loopt, a mobile social network that can be used to see where your friends are currently located, has partnered with Verizon to put its software on that carrier’s phones. It’s a big win for Loopt since Verizon has more location-aware handsets than any other carrier.
If you don’t know anyone who uses Loopt yet, that’s because the company is still working on getting its technology into more phones across more carriers. Loopt’s primary capability, which the company prefers to call “location sharing” (not user tracking), requires the ability to run location detection software, preferably in the background of a phone so it works while in your pocket. Since location detection is a privileged feature for most carriers, Loopt has needed to work with them one-by-one to reach their users.
Verizon joins Sprint Nextel and its subsidiary Boost Mobile in the lineup of carriers who officially support Loopt. Verizon provides not only more handsets that can run Loopt but a better development environment based on BREW as well. This will allow Loopt to integrate its software more closely into the carrier’s 20 supported phones, which include the LG Chocolate, MOTORIZR, Z6tv, and G’zOne Type-S. As a side note, the BlackBerry and iPhone are still not supported on any carrier.
Loopt will cost Verizon users $4/mo. They will be able to find it in the carrier’s “Get It Now” virtual store starting sometime in April.
The Mountain View-based company has raised $17M total over three rounds, including a seed round from Y Combinator. Competitors include uLocate and MapMyTracks, which use GPS instead cell-tower triangulation.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Loopt Embraced by Verizon; Starts to Spread Its Mobile Wings
Loopt, a mobile social network that can be used to see where your friends are currently located, has partnered with Verizon to put its software on that carrier’s phones. It’s a big win for Loopt since Verizon has more location-aware handsets than any other carrier.
If you don’t know anyone who uses Loopt yet, that’s because the company is still working on getting its technology into more phones across more carriers. Loopt’s primary capability, which the company prefers to call “location sharing” (not user tracking), requires the ability to run location detection software, preferably in the background of a phone so it works while in your pocket. Since location detection is a privileged feature for most carriers, Loopt has needed to work with them one-by-one to reach their users.
Verizon joins Sprint Nextel and its subsidiary Boost Mobile in the lineup of carriers who officially support Loopt. Verizon provides not only more handsets that can run Loopt but a better development environment based on BREW as well. This will allow Loopt to integrate its software more closely into the carrier’s 20 supported phones, which include the LG Chocolate, MOTORIZR, Z6tv, and G’zOne Type-S. As a side note, the BlackBerry and iPhone are still not supported on any carrier.
Loopt will cost Verizon users $4/mo. They will be able to find it in the carrier’s “Get It Now” virtual store starting sometime in April.
The Mountain View-based company has raised $17M total over three rounds, including a seed round from Y Combinator. Competitors include uLocate and MapMyTracks, which use GPS instead cell-tower triangulation.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Loopt Launches Mobile Location Based Application Platform
Loopt has the most tightly integrated and feature rich mobile social networking service we’ve seen, and we’ve seen a bunch.
Loopt’s mobile application lets you broadcast your location even while your phone is closed and send messages or photos between you and your friends. It can do this to a greater degree because of their deal with Sprint/Nextel, which recently went un-exclusive. But a social application isn’t all that useful unless your friends are using it too, and so far Loopt has been limited to the Sprint network. That is, until now.
Loopt is launching a beta program for developers on a new mobile social networking platform. The platform will free user’s data from the network and let developers incorporate it into new SMS, WAP, or mobile location based applications using Loopt’s APIs. Loopt’s API’s will feed geographical data from users who opt into the applications to a developers program. Yahoo’s Brickhouse has been working on a similar GPS platform as well (Fire Eagle), but relies on the programmer to feed the location data into the service. Another location based service, Plazes, doesn’t use GPS, but solves the problem by letting users “bookmark” their location to make broadcasting their movements easier. Loopt says their API will solve the compatibility problems between phones and networks for developers so they only have to worry about building the application.
To participate in the beta, go here and tell them how you’d use the service. They’re working with a group of 15 to 20 developers on designing the first applications already and will be supporting some more carriers as well, although the details hush hush.
However, you can imagine what kinds of services will develop. With location data, you could make smarter search queries, trigger location related messages, or more easily post photos or messages related to your location.
Loopt says their deal with Sprint and related carriers gives them potential exposure to over 50 million users, although they haven’t released any user numbers. Boost, which they originally launched with, has last reported they had 100,000 users and not updated that number in some time.
cb_widget_report_widget("cb_widget_1200616472"); cb_widget_report_element("cb_widget_0_1200616472","loopt"); cb_widget_report_element("cb_widget_1_1200616472","akaaki"); cb_widget_report_element("cb_widget_2_1200616472","mig33"); cb_widget_report_element("cb_widget_3_1200616472","meetmoi");
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Loopt May Be “Friending†More Mobile Networks
We’ve been tracking a few emerging mobile-only social networks. All of these services are downloadable applications that run on your mobile phone.
Mobile social network Loopt, however, has had the distinction of being one of two with a automated location updates and deep integration with a U.S. carrier, Sprint (Helio is the other). This opens up a lot of possibilities for location based services. The deal gave them a lot of advantages over other networks. They could easily relay location information — what we call the “Holy Grail” — and came pre-installed on phones. But the deal also meant only your Sprint friends could join and you need a GPS enabled phone. However, Loopt’s exclusivity agreement is up and they’re looking to expand the service across more carriers and services (even Android).
As part of expanding their reach, Loopt has released a new version of their program that integrates with your address book (like Zyb) and sends status updates to your non-Sprint friends over SMS or AIM. The messages can also attach a link to a map online, so a texting “let’s meet for coffee” can also say where you are. As before, it still has the geotagging, messaging, and privacy features we already reported on. I’m sure they’re learning a lot from services like Twitter and the recent Jaiku acquisition.
Loopt has remained tight lipped about who they’re talking to, but the pitch is pretty clear. Competition is driving down mobile voice revenues which Loopt says they can help offset by driving new profits in data plans people pay for to use the program. Currently they make money through $2.99/month subscription plans or by being bundled in with a phone data plan. Location based services and advertising are also other key revenue sources. Loopt says that 51% of all mobile application revenue already comes from location based services.
But it’s not all smooth sailing ahead. While Loopt owns it’s section of the network, other mobile networks with lower barriers to entry have gained a lot of traction. Twitter has kept a high profile (with funding) and Mig33 has claimed over 7 million registered users. Loopt could learn a great deal from following the lead of these lower friction services.
cb_widget_report_widget("cb_widget_1195157317"); cb_widget_report_element("cb_widget_0_1195157317","loopt"); cb_widget_report_element("cb_widget_1_1195157317","akaaki"); cb_widget_report_element("cb_widget_2_1195157317","zyb"); cb_widget_report_element("cb_widget_3_1195157317","mig33");
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
