I'm a text messenger from way back. Way back being when BlackBerries were only pagers and we text messaged each other while in important meetings or out of the office to make sure that we all had the same information and were all telling the same stories. Howard Rheingold has a great bit on Jeff Axup—a Ph.D candidate in Australia's University of Queensland's Information Environments program—and the importance of observing homo sapiens in their natural environments whilst communicating in motion ala MoSoSo. Gossip as a form of primary travel information. Blogs as a form of friendly gossip. There is something so wonderfully real or near-real time about gossip, especially friendly travel gossip. Our Gadling blog here at Weblogs, Inc. is a form of friendly travel gossip. Blogs encourage this manner of swapping stories, especially in ongoing comments, trackbacks, tagging, digg-ing, slashdotting, flickr-ing, etc. Howard has some great quotes from Jeff Axup, a ...

I dunno much about it other than that it's got a good name. MoSoSo is so not launched it's not even alpha (hard to back up any further than alpha — may have to cycle back to zeta). It's a project by Zach Klein of Vimeo fame and Wake Forest University's Dr. Yue-Ling Wong and presumably aims to socially inhabit your cellphone at some point in the not-too-distant future. [Via del.icio.us] ...

Had to share this rather, um, unusual entrant into the MoSoSo genre: True Blue Love is an application for Series 60 Symbian phones that aims to explore the politics behind intimate mobile social interactions. The concept is that you enter the characteristics of your ideal mate into the program, based on a set of pre-defined selections. Whenever another cellphone comes within range, the app calculates a "love metric" that represents how close the phone owner is to your ideal partner. If the match crosses a certain threshold, the phone emits a "raucous mating call," unique to the participant, to signify that a potential significant other is in range. The philosophy behind the software is to undermine the silent technologies of SMS and email so ubiquitous today with a return toward a more primitive method of communication. I think it's sort of a roundabout way to achieve primitivism but regardless, I'm totally amused. Just don't forget to turn this off when you're in the movie theater, dig? ...

Benjamin Kaplan writes of a new blog dedicated to covering the MoSoSo space (that's mobile social software, natch). It's got a slightly finer focus on those MoSoSos involving location-based services, or LBS, if you will (I will.). Keep up the good work, LBS-Mososo! ...

There's a new player in the mobile social software (MoSoSo, if you will. I will. In fact, I just did.) sphere: Phling! is a service for your cellphone that allows you to relay multimedia between your phone, your IM buddy list, and your home computer. What's interesting about Phling! (taking a cue from the likewise excitedly punctuated Yahoo!, perhaps) is that it takes a peer-to-peer approach to mobile messaging, as opposed to relying on the typical central server data warehouse method. It's also not using MMS to relay multimedia data, but rather makes use of your phone's internet connection (data plan required) to send pictures, voice and text messages to your friends — thus, there are no per-message fees as there are with MMS on most carriers (unless you spring for an unlimited data plan). Could this be the key to getting the mobile social arena to kick off into wider adoption here in the States? Surely cost been a deciding factor in preventing the average American from thinking "data" ...

Oh special day it is for we bring you here two, two, two posts in one on a new social network visualization concept for mobile devices — myself and Judith have penned our divergent thoughts on what we both agree is a refreshing new approach to visualizing social networks. Judith: Steven Blyth's 'Social Fabric', or a close approximation thereof, is bound to join the rank of most popular MoSoSo tool in the not too distant future. 'Layers' of this avatar inhabited mobile handheld world are even more appropriate. A layer for friends, business associates, press associates, blogging associates, book club associates, dog walking world associates, etc. ...

The AP's May Wong reports that Digital Chocolate is creating some pretty cool social games for your mobile phone. One that is coming up is called "Message in a Garden". Trip Hawkins, the founder of Digital Chocolate Inc. is quoted as saying: "The mobile phone is really turning into a social computer". Why that is so MoSoSo of you Trip. Digital Chocolate also has a mess of other mobile multiplayer games. May goes on to talk about the increasing popularity of multiplayer games gone mobile and references other hosts for these games. What's your favorite mobile game? ...

I went on a social story search on Engadget this evening and stumbled upon Earthcomber's recent addition of 'sharing' features to their PalmOS PDA mapping product. In a recent press release, Earthcomber founder Jim Brady said: "We're putting people in charge of their own experience, and with this release of Earthcomber, people can graduate from being recipients of information to being mappers of their own worlds." With or without a GPS enabled palm device, Earthcomber rocks for everything from personal travel to smart mobbing to bird watching. Free for users, Earthcomber comes preloaded with about 1.5M locations, points of interest, libraries, hospitals, etc. You can mark, or 'trade places' using either your Palm device or the web. And now you can join any number of groups to share these favorite spots. Note to self: add to SNS Meta List under MoSoSos. There, done. Here's my current MoSoSo list: AirCQ, awaRE, BEDD, BusyThumbs*, BuZZone, CrowdSurfer, ...

So Scott Heiferman is quoted as saying that Meetup.com is "... using the Internet to get people off the Internet…" And then I'm guessing that Scott is hoping to get members back on the Internet, at least intermittently, if only to arrange future meetups… Then Jambo.net (recently launched at DEMO) co-CEOs, Charles Ribaudo and Jim Young, are also endeavoring to create face to face meeting opportunities for their WiFi enabled service members. Jambo's homepage says "...If you share something in common… And you're within walking distance… We'll introduce you. Wirelessly. A new way to network. Face-to-Face…" A new way to network?!? Silly me, I thought this was the old way to network? And then the Internet came along as 'a' new way to network. A timely concept Jambo. I'm sure it will grow as it goes. It's certainly not the first to this market. There have been a number of other MoSoSo plays moving in this general direction. But ...

I've written about CrowdSurfer before here on the SS Weblog but Hunter Heaney from SmallPlanet tells me that they have a new version 2.0 out now that is free and can be downloaded directly to your J2ME Midp 2.0 and JSR-82 compliant cell phones. CrowdSurfer has been tested on the Nokia 6600 and 6230 but should work on a raft of other phones as well. You can join the CrowdSurfer Yahoo Group too if you want to test out the software and lend Small Planet your feedback. According to Hunter, this MoSoSo entrant—CrowdSurfer—offers: "...profile matching, passing pix back and forth, and up to four degrees of friend-of-friend cabablities, all through Bluetooth. It works on a fairly limited number of phones, but the software does now what everyone's been talking about being able to do sometime off in the future…" ...

I had a chance to try out a new service in the mobile social software arena recently. Fotochatter allows you to "narrowcast" photos from your cameraphone to your friends and receive SMS notifications for comments left by your friends on your pics, as well as get SMS alerts when friends post new photos so you can comment on theirs in turn. If your phone supports Java, fotochatter can run as an application, but is also available as a WAP site if your phone isn't Java-enabled. The service is unique in that it's explicitly trying to capture the "in the moment" aspect of cameraphone photography, as opposed to services like Flickr which the fotochatter founders describe as embodying more of a "storage worthy" mentality. They compare it to the difference between email and instant messaging, in that IM is seen as a more transient medium that evokes a certain spontaneity not as evident in email, which is somewhat more concerned with enduring information. Fotochatter, then, is focusing on ...

Once again, this is my recently updated Social Networking Services Meta List. It is broken down into nine loosely built categories that will continue to shift. These social networking categories are: business; common interest; dating; face-to-face facilitation; friends; MoSoSo (Mobile Social Software); pets; photos; and 'edge' cases or social networking 'plus' sites. The mostly recently added services are marked with an *. Please keep submitting your comments, links, and recommendations for additions and deletions. This list now stands at 380 entries. Thanks... (:= business networking sites Affinity Engines, Appiir*, Business Parc, BusinessPartnerships.ca*, Contact Network, Doostang*, ecademy, eConozco, Eliyon, EntreMate, eXtremeNetworking.biz*, Friendly Favors, GoingProfessional, Growth Company, I'm Not From Here, InterAction, ITmob, ItsNotWhatYouKnow, Join Network PLUS, LLC, Kickstart-Connect*, Konnects, LinkedIn, Link Silicon Valley, matcheroo, Mediabistro, Monster Networking, NetMiner, Netmodular ...