Thanks to Chris for sending this — Mapmix is a personals site that uses Google Maps to allow users to do visual searches by location. You enter in any amount of contact info and personal data you wish to make public, and other users will be able to see you on the map when you're logged in. You can filter which users are shown by gender, sexual orientation or relationship search in order to get a "visual result set" of potential dates. If you find someone interesting, you can send them a Quick Message, or use any of the info they provide to contact them via IM, email, etc.

Given that it's only recently launched into beta, and so doesn't have a lot of folks hanging out yet — I can see this getting more interesting closer to critical mass. It's an interesting presence tool with the combination of location visualization, but I'm wondering how well it will work as a standalone site (and I have little hope for it as a dating site, honestly). What would be cool is if existing social networking sites like Tribe, Myspace, et al had something like this built in to their interface. It would make more sense to have this kind of location and presence information built in to an existing community, rather than trying to establish an entirely new community based solely on the fact that users can be privy to location and presence data. The Quick Messaging isn't a real-time chat environment, so it just doesn't feel like there's much to actually do on the site. I absolutely love the idea, but I just want it naturally built in to social sites instead of needing to be a Yet Another Separate Social Site all on its own.