:: Social networking with Bluetooth ::
Recently, there was an interesting thread running on the mobile applications club at Ecademy. It was about proximity sensing using Bluetooth in order to assist social networking at a networking event. This is an idea that frequently circulates in various circles and one of my favourite examples for illustrating various aspects of peer-to-peer (P2P) services.
I thought it would be useful to blog a couple of interesting ideas from the discussion. Firstly, there is no need to utilise proximity sensing at a networking event, because via some kind of registration it is possible to know who is present at the event. We can imagine the event as being like a potential IM conversation, in which case the registration at the front desk is the "I'm online" announcement (or "I'm here"). Some kind of profile matching process on the backend could subsequently notify a present networker about a match.
Secondly, all the messaging could be done via SMS, which allows the service to be reached by most attendees (pending cellular coverage issues of course). However, notifications could also be made using Bluetooth, via Bluejacking possibly, using networked phones or a dedicated Bluetooth hotspot appliance.
There are so many ways to implement a social-networking solution and more than likely, a hybrid, or multi-modal approach will make most sense, combining BT, SMS and WAP.
[P.S. In terms of rapid prototyping of Bluetooth ideas, it is supposedly possible to use Visual Basic (for those who don't know C, OPL, Java etc.) using the AppForge incarnation on Palm or PPC with Bluetooth cards. AppForge has some technical notes on how to do this.]
11:58:46 AM 
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