Wearable Location-Based Mobile Social Network

PSFK has been tracking the development of services and devices that execute on the idea of making connections between individuals that would otherwise never meet.

MagnetU is a platform that connects nearby users with shared interests, powered by a small wearable short-range wireless device synced to users’ mobiles. These sensors are tied to an online profile, where users describe the kinds of people they would like to meet. The platform gives would-be strangers context for conversation by sending a notification to each mobile device when a match is nearby.

Yaron Moradi, CEO of MagnetU shares his thoughts below:

What projects or ideas are currently inspiring your work?

Today there are so many “social networks” and so many opportunities for people to get introduced online. The real true value of social networking is quickly moving towards providing the user with much more targeted goals. Things such as discovery, context, and relevance are of more importance to people now, because they are being bombarded with literally thousands of “friends” that are in many cases meaningless to their lives. Targeted goals of the past were to accumulate “friends”, today users are demanding more from their social network experiences.

The way forward is to discern who and what is important for the user. Discovery – finding who or what you want, Context – finding who or what you want that fits your life, and Relevance – finding who or what you want that is meaningful to you.

What is your take on the contrast between curated, guided interactions through technologies that help match us and serendipitous ones that happen completely by chance?

Serendipity is often not totally serendipitous. Perhaps you have heard of the term “familiar strangers”? People that are surrounding you in your environment, whom you don’t know personally, these are people you bump into in line for the bus or fast food restaurant, people that work in your building, spending time in same entertainment places as you do, or who work, live or go to school nearby. Those people are the familiar strangers that hold the door for each other, and the chance of a serendipitous introduction happening between familiar strangers, is thousands of times more likely than if you broke away from your daily routine and met someone far away from where you normally are.

MagnetU will tell you if you and someone who is right now in the same place as you do (even while indoor), or just a few hundreds feet away, match the similar interest and social desires of each other as well as if the matched party has the sincere intention of meeting you, or be a new friend. We plan on taking social networking to the street, to entertainment places, parties, beaches, shopping malls, trade shows, subways, when you just enjoy somewhere with your friends, or anywhere else outside the user’s home. Think of MagnetU as the “People Magnet” drawing like-minded people together that are in the same general geographical location, that’s the real location-based mobile social networking, not just add new friends, but make new connections/friendships/dates/business connections with people that you and them share the same interest and social desires and are right now close to each other, that’s what we call – “match and make new connection”.

The fact that we pass by so many people in our day to day lives is another reason for why serendipity is often not totally serendipitous. We got used to and fight viruses that transfer from one person to another, but can we use the density of people we pass by to a positive purpose??

An integral part of the MagnetU Concept is the patent-pending Viral Dynamic Human Mobile Network it creates. As the MagnetU mobile social network devices pass nearby each other, they exchange all the interests and social desires that each is carrying in a viral way, there could literally be hundreds of other user profiles being exchanged, in the blink of an eye, each time a MagnetU passes by other MagnetU’s.

The MagnetU Network grows and shrinks as people move around their local area. If 4 MagnetU users happened to be on a subway train (not necessarily the same train car), they instantly create a wireless network between them all, and all the information they carry gets replicated amongst the group. If out of perhaps 1,000 profiles they are all collectively carrying, 2 of them are matches, those two users both get instantly notified. If no match was found, then everyone goes about their daily business, never even knowing there was another MagnetU nearby…and all carrying more new profiles data with them in different directions, spreading them as they cross paths with other MagnetU devices again!

This connection, networking, and transfers all happens in a fraction of a second! The “Dynamic Mobile Human Network” grows and shrinks on its own, there is no central server, no Big Brother watching and it’s a completely private network which the user disconnects from as they leave the range of another MagnetU.

What is your insight on the distance that people are comfortable with in terms of locating/being located? (Do people generally want to meet someone only in the same room? In the same building as them? In the building across the street?)

Of course people should be concerned with personal safety issues while revealing their actual physical location. MagnetU is unique in that, we do not need the user to “check in ” for his/her location, we do not know a user location, we do not trace a specific location, or send out any specific physical locations, we leave this up to the users to decide when or if they will share this information with another person. It’s a location based service strictly without the need to check in or expose your location to anyone. User’s don’t need to get struggled with whom they want to share their location and with whom they don’t. You should enjoy using the service, let it work for you, and not work for the service. MagnetU just doesn’t need to know your location, as simple as that.

Online “elationships” are unfulfilling and often result in disappointment due to distance, exaggerations, or downright lying to each other to keep the other party interested. Long distance relationships also don’t work well. To be most fulfilled in life, you need to be friends or in love with someone that is geographically close to you. MagnetU is excellent solution for meeting people that you like, close to you.

The vast majority of socializing happens outside of the home environment – in a party, a club or bar, when you are in school, mall or even business environments like trade fairs. People go to all these places to enjoy themselves, meet new people, find love or develop business relationships.

Close physical proximity of say up to hundreds of feet between people who discover they match the desires of each other – that’s what makes MagnetU so exciting. If one is at office and doesn’t want to match with people in the same office, then he/she just needs to turn off their MagnetU and turn them ON again when they are outdoor for example. Also, it is important to remember that if there is a person in the same bar as you do or in a distance of hundreds feet that you both match the interest and social desires of each other, each of you will receive a text message to the mobile phone. MagnetU does not beep or make any sort of noise, so actually no one can really know who the person is until and if they decide to be in further contact.

In addition to that, we believe that location based mobile social networks should also be connected to the user’s online life. Obviously there are millions of users out there already using online social networks. We need to let them connect their mobile life to the online world. In the mobile text messages received, we show the social network sites your MagnetU match is on, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, ICQ, or others (and we are adding more). One would may want to look at the new MagnetU matched person on Facebook, and maybe discover they also went to the same concert last month, or work in a similar business! And…hey they’re not too bad looking either! Instantly you have things to talk about, and know about some of your common interests, how cool is that? And then when they are back home they can add their new MagnetU matched friends they socialized with in the mobile life, to their online life – add them to Facebook, follow them on Twitter, and so on.

The society is in a fast run after social networking, and there are plenty of opportunities in this market, however, perhaps more important than the distances people are comfortable with meeting each other, is that they are actually open and ready for actual physical meetings. The great growth of online social networks also increase the desire of people to a “warm human touch”, offline, in the real world, where MASS MINGLINGs occur.

Forget the dark projections for a “cold and estranged world”, the virtual social networks became a filter tool for a warm human touch, for going out of home and for serendipity but physical meeting between people who share similar interests and social desires. As people will use more virtual filters, it will make it easier for them to experience a warm human touch, but more accurately and with people who are similar to them. Because of MagnetU’s pre-communication, by the automatic exchange and match comparison of a profile that includes what I personally like and what type of people I want to match with, MagnetU turns people to be more open for actual physical meetings.

Thanks Yaron!

MagnetU