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Social Networking From Your Cell
A small startup VCEL (Virtual Communication Expression & Lifestyle) has unveiled a new social networking service for cell phones. All you need to do to keep in contact with your friends 24/7 is to create a profile with their website, download a Java application for your cell phone (more than 20 models are supported already), and send an invitation to your buddies. Here we go: you can exchange comments, pictures, plan on activities together, etc. You'd have the same control over your profile either from phone or from web browser. They have a nice Java applet for your page, so you can leave your buddies a voice message right from your computer and so on.
US only?
Splendid! Yet another way to watch my friends leave their accounts idle or away for months at a time.
Facebook.com isn't distracting enough already. Now I can assure that my productively plummets to the Earth's core.
http://vcellvibes.com/vcel_register.php
Or at least that link works for me.
I wonder what the MySpace stuff is about? Are they going to auto-spam everyone you're friends with on MySpace? The TOS & FAQ say nothing about it AFAIK.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
'Myspace 2.0'
"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson
Or...you could...just...go talk to them. That's what me and my friends* do. *(Term used loosely)
The heavens do not fall for such a trifle.
There are only so many friends that any one person has. Friends of friends make for interesting conversation, but ultimately there is no relationship friends of friends. Extend that even further outwards towards friends of friends of friends and you are now talking about perfect strangers. It's like playing the Kevin Bacon game, but without any of the fun.
What is the benefit of having a huge social network if you're not directly linked to the people who are in the network? It's not like you can call them up and crash at their place. More time should be spent cultivating actual relationships and not trying to make a game out of creating links where none actually exist.
The real next boom in cellphone software services is mobile blogging. Snap a shot while walking and upload and comment on the picture.
...how common it has become to use our cell phones for entertainment? I like this kind of technology, but what has happened to good ole hookin up with people in person?
Funnypics
Call me old-fashioned, but I can exchange comments and plan activities with my friends by - GASP! - calling them!
-"Hey, man, fancy a beer?"
-"Sure!"
But hey, at least their FAQ mentions a "tickr". VC's of the world, unite!
Call me a primitive bastard but I prefer my cell phone to be a cell phone. I don't need text messaging (which I get 10 spam messages and forced to pay a buck for every month), video games, TV, porn, or Muppet Show ringers.
I can already see the next gen of this: Cells that let you call your friend and tell them you want to meet!
Gosh. I'm bouncy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How is this helpful at all? If anything, it's more of a hassle. Since, you know, every user on this service has a cell phone already, isn't it much easier to just call the person directly and avoid the middleman?
I thought the Department of Corrections was allowing inmates expanded Constitutional Rights... but alas, it is just more telephonic gimmicky crap I do not need.
So, wait. I see Verizon offering this as part of their music/video package. So I can dance to the latest tunes while shopping for clothes and scheduling something with my friends with this social networking. Wow....
Seriously. This stuff is so stupid. Why not actually use the phone and TALK to your friends?
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
The headline had me envisoning Charles Mason's myspace page.
Where would you recommend doing that? Society has changed a lot since the Hoedown at the Barn and whatever came before that.
...when the US has phones and networks equivalent to -- let's be charitable here -- what the rest of the world had six years ago.
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
The actual next thing (old thing, if you consider Nextel) is Push to Talk over Cellular. It works like a little handheld CB that broadcasts to selected recipients. Given a fixed rate per message, you don't have to make 10 calls to 10 friends just to update everyone with some new information. You just select the recipients from your addressbook, press the dial button, and send your message.
It's like the Star Trek communicators except that no one seems to like clamshells, so you don't get the cool flip action of the ST radios.
A better use is vobbo's video blog + video phone integration, where you can post pictures and video from the phone to the web. Don't try to type with a silly keypad, don't try to view video/picture on limited resolution, use it as an input device and get back to using the web the way you meant to all along.
Get the media online quickly and easily, that's what people really seem to care about, anyway.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
Dodgeball?
I had in mind meeting people for the first time. Back in the old days there were only rural areas, in which you could be sure everyone's interests were farming, towns that were more homogenous than those of today, and then there was royalty. Nowadays there are a great many more interests, and restaurants, which is one place to meet people are structured around what you want to eat more than social compatibility.
All I want to know is how much /. got paid for this post.
Sounds great! Now do these "friends" come with the service or are they separate download? Is there torrent?
Since when did journals get turned into stories, much less put on the front page? And isn't this one giant slashvertisement for a service which is indistinguishable from about half a dozen websites that already do much of the same?
Please help metamoderate.
"The real next boom in cellphone software services is mobile blogging. Snap a shot while walking and upload and comment on the picture." You can do this from Flickr, including posting to a blog.
Finally a way to stay in touch with all my felonious friends!
What's wrong with existing Java Jabber and MSN clients that already exist? Why use yet another IM network?
Sort of, you're closer than you think however. The *Real* next boom in cell phone services is sexual profiling. Follow me for a moment...
Imagine having everything on your cell phone. Hell, even your genetic profile. On this cell phone, you would have your stated likes and dislikes much like a match.com or eharmony profile. Also, you would have your sexual profile available too. From here, you could walk down the street into a mall or bar. Within movements, your cell phone would vibrate the closer you got to a potential prospect. If you're lucky, you would be fucking your brains out in the next 10 minutes...
Welcome to the new western sexual revolution. It's coming. Are you ready? Is society ready???
Life is not for the lazy.
I think people might have a problem with this since cell phones can easily be used to call people and simply talk to them. This service isn't for talking to people. It's for networking. All you people who have no friends can now have some thanks to this brilliant new program of Social Networking! Unfortunately, it can only be used with people you already know.
So now they're be more car accidents, probaly in teenagers...
soon inusrance will go up if you own a cell phone and no hands free kit.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
I clicked on this RSS feed and from the headline I was thinking it was a social networking sire for prison inmates.
really 867993
Karma schkarma
This sounds interesting and all, but why do we care about these people making friends and building social networks? Plus, how many REALLY have cell phones, and do they even work inside the cell blocks? That's a lot of concrete.
I guess I don't understand the market behind this. And isn't there liability giving potential predators a chance to gain someones trust?
Just another reason to stay away from MySpace.
I wonder how all these new social networking sites are planning to gather the critical mass needed. The only way I see it happening for a start-up is by targeting some niche and wait for "overflow" into other demographics.
WTF is right. I've never seen anything like this. Why is it always ScuttleMonkey promoting shady stories to the homepage?
The more you know, the less you understand.
Yeah, it's easy to phone someone up and organise some sort of activity, but with each new person who wants to join in on said activity the complexity grows. Try and get 10 people to reach a consensus on where to eat .. it can take a while! I can see the calendar as being a useful application.
"Dewey, you fool: Your decimal system has played right into my hands!"
"The application also allows for cool features such as allowing you to make restaurant orders and payments on your cell phone screen without the need of having your wallet with you."
... like a credit card?
"The availability status gives you the choice of one of multiple availability settings that describe how easily you can get in touch with any of your contacts or how easily they could reach you."
... like MSN/Yahoo!' mobile IM?
"This is a function that allows you to search through your buddies as well as all CELL ViBES members. The search is designed as a tool to help you in reaching the people you are interested more efficiently."Myself, if it rings out, I'm busy. If it doesn't ring at all, I'm N/A. If I answer, I'm probably available.
"The TO DO list is a place for you to jot down some events and things that you need to do in a given day."
... like a PDA/diary/calendar/hPDA/list?. If a phone has WAP capability, it probably has a calendar too.
As for `exchanging comments', how is that different than SMS? I'm all for improving efficiency, but it's almost absurd, is there really a need for a Complete Java Solution to collaborate a `meeting' between a few people?
I guess some people feel isolated if their IM isn't running 24/7. While you connect, download, compose, send, wait, receive, read, record, respond, and disconnect, I'll just give them a call or send a message.
Maybe it's just me, but what's so freaking social about trying to have a conversation with somebody who's busy "social networking" on his freaking phone while you're trying to talk to them?
People gotta learn to put the damned things away occasionally.
If you and your friends already have cellphones, aren't you available 24/7 anyways?
I thought that there was now a MySpace for Prisoners. Would have made for some good blogs...
"today i totally had a shiv to my head in the laundry room! it was just like that part in shawshank redemption! i LOL'd and sum totally came out my nose! it was so gross"
I'm sorry.
"What's the point of social networking outside your cell? Bubba's all you need..."
The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. -Anais Nin
If I were to remain in contact with my friends 24/7, I'm fairly sure they wouldn't remain friends for very long. And they would probably feel likewise about me.
.. that social networking from my cell involved shivs, gangs, guards, prison bitches, trading skills and smuggling drugs inside.
Several years ago there was a Japanese company that gave you the ability to program social and sexual preferences into a tiny little device, that broadcasted them to similar devices within a 100 meters or so, yours and the compatible person's device would blink or vibrate (guess that would be a part of the sexual preference), allowing you to then meet and mate.
.. "dude, happy hour at the bar ... "
Seriously, how many of us would want our unemployed friends (arent they all?) IM'ing them in the middle of a billion dollar VC presentation
Yeah, now a "Ho down" is probably police crime number.
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Social networking from your cell?
* Hey Bubba! I'll introduce you to my bitch for a pack of cigarettes!
* Sure thing, mon.
Get your own free personal location tracker
I would like to welcome the USofA to the 21st century.
What exactly is wrong about http://www.bluepulse.com/ which works for anyone in the world?
As a added bonus, you can chat on MSN and Aim/ICQ, get news feeds and it has an api for developing your own extensions. works with most Wap and Java (MIDP1 and 2), Symbian enabled phones...
I pay per-kilobyte charges for network traffic. Social networking just isn't important enough to pay for.
This is why this and all other "online on your phone" ventures are going to fail (adoption wise), until the phone companies stop raping people on data rates.
The only people who can afford this kind of thing right now are business users with data plans to keep in touch with the office. Thus, these companies are excluding the fastest growing segment of cellphone users (tweens, teens and young adults), which would also be the largest segment of users of this software, before it even gets off the ground.
You should be able to get unlimited data on your cell for 9.95. You can't use your cell for any real work anyway, the latency is horrid and makes even surfing WAP pages butt slow. Until the price point comes down they're never going to see any market penetration.
Bad timing on their part. They're going to need to capture college kids, who are addicted to this type of thing...Facebook has incredible penetration rates on most decently-sized campuses, and they just came out with a very useful mobile interface to their profiles. Takes bar stalking to a whole new level. That might take the wind out of this service before it starts.
OT, but I'd love to see how MySpace's numbers have changed since Facebook became so prevalent, at least amongst the college demographic. I know you can have both, but why live in the ghetto when you can have something nicer?
Social networking with a phone? What ELSE is one supposed to do with a phone???
-- The Online Photo Editor - http://www.phixr.com
Social Networking from Your Cell?
I was imagining prisoners on MySpace.
-==-
Black Eye Peas hit single $1.25
Black Eye Peas ringtone $2.50
Sending a picture of Black Eye Peas to friends $0.58,
Recieving Black Eyed Peas e-mail $0.10
Text messeging 55 time at Black Eyed Peas concert $5.50
Downloading Black Eyed Peas phone game $12
Signing up for social networking service to become Black Eyed PEas friend $15/month
Cellcasting Black Eyed Peas concert to friend in Iraq $78
Seeing parents reaction to your first phone bill....priceless.
Me and Bubba have been doing social networking from our prison cell way before this; only we use cigarettes and chewing gum instead of Java. We tried Java once, but it was kinda weird getting a coffee enema from my cell 'mate'.
Slashcode bug # 497457 - unfixed since December 2001 - Go look it up!
o/~ Join us now and share the software
I can't wait :-q
I vaguely recall reading about a service called lovegetty than does that. There is Japanese movie called Vibrator (a very good indy prod art film by the way) where a woman in a convience store meets a truck driver after her cel buzzes and spends the next 3 days with him.
Lovegetty
I do social networking from my cell all the time. Otherwise, I might as well be in solitary confinement.
Something else to distract that Highschool girl driving down the road as she changed lanes on top of me.
So, where on the site does it mention what phones it works with?
I apparently doesn't work with the world's most converged phones (well, I tried it on a Treo 650, and it doesn't work in IBM's Java client that comes with the Treo), and the website is.. appauling, even for a first effort.
Dodgeball, dudes. It's all about being able to do this stuff with SMS, which every phone has. Sure, they can have a fancy Java midlet later.. but first, it's gotta work on everybody's phone before it will have widespread acceptance.
I thought this was social networking for jailbirds.