tag = "Iphone"

I have long believed that location-based mobile social networking is central to how technology will connect us. The advent of next generation phones including the iPhone combined with people’s familiarity and engagement with social networks means that the space is – finally – ready to take off. Here is a very quick review of the past, present, and future of the space.

Hänsler told CNN that although the service will remain free for users, ultimately aka-aki intends to sell profile space to commercial ventures. "A shop or brand can have a profile at aka-aki and you could 'meet' a shop, or a shop could tell who is passing it every morning and maybe offer that person a voucher for something, or tell them when they have special offers," he said.

Aka-aki is currently focused on Bluetooth technology, because it's so widespread in cell phones, but the GPS technology in Apple's iPhone is even more exciting, because of its ability to pinpoint the position of its users outdoors, with the iPhone's wi-fi detection performing a similar function indoors.

Loopt has now launched all of those features, and they’ve built a special version of the service just for TechCrunch. Once you’ve added the application to your iPhone you can see where your friends are and what they are up to. And you can also meet TechCrunch Loopt members who are near you even if they aren’t your friend yet.

We’ve been bullish about location-based social networks for quite awhile now, especially since Apple announced that it would open up the iPhone to developers. And with two significant developments in this space just this week (more on that below), we thought it would be a good time to take a step back and look at the options currently available through the Apple App Store.

What makes a “location-based” social network different than a normal one? At least as things stand today, location-based social networks run primarily on smartphones that have the ability to determine a user’s current location, usually by leveraging GPS or cellular tower triangulation. The social network then uses your location to reveal nearby friends and places of interest. See our Location Technologies Primer for additional information.

For your next automobile ride, will you meet the call to join in and Carticipate?
Carticipate is the first location-based mobile social network application for ride sharing, ride combining, and car pooling on a mobile platform -- specifically, the iPhone. The download is free and allows users to indicate where they are going and when, broadcast this information, and allow others in the same area (with iPhones) going in the same direction to find each other. Any tech that conserves resources to lessen environmental impacts while also connecting people is what we call way susty. Launched only a few weeks ago, Carticipate is currently limited by the small number of people who have signed up. However, if a critical mass of travelers join the network, Carticipate holds the promise of becoming the "Craigslist of carpooling." Pile into this virtual clown car for a video test-drive here.

Mark/Space has launched Fliq, a social networking app for the iPhone and iPod touch. Users can send photos and contacts to one another in real-time, without using e-mail, SMS or instant messaging configurations. Content can also be shared with anyone on the same Wi-Fi network.

Brightkite’s featureset will be familiar to users of similar applications like Loopt. The app allows users to syndicate their current location to their friends, meet nearby Brightkite users, and lifestream with the equivalent of geo-encoded Tweets. The application is tied to Yahoo’s Fire Eagle, which allows users to manage their location from a number of other services. The site also uses databases to automatically associate POI’s and cross streets with GPS locations, so user positions aren’t simply displayed as coordinates.

Last month, I said I believed there were three major trends in the future of social media: Unified accounts, transparency with connections to the real world, and adaptation to the mobile Web. As more consumers, including me, are seeing an increasing amount of their Web activity taking place on mobile devices, the need to create customized interfaces for all those iPhones, Android-capable handsets and Blackberries is getting ever more important, and those that don't do a good job of it will find their growth stunted.

Today, Strands, the social content discovery service which at times has drawn comparisons to FriendFeed and Plaxo, took a major step forward

“Usage of social networking is also popular among iPhone users: 49.7 percent accessed a social networking site in January, nearly twelve times the market average. Twenty percent of iPhone owners accessed Facebook, one of the first Web properties to customize its content for the iPhone, versus 1.5 percent of the total mobile market.”

Zynga, the largest social gaming network, announced today the launch of “Live Poker,” the first truly live game on the iPhone. This mobile version of Zynga’s popular Texas Hold’Em turns the iPhone into an always-on social gaming device.

Over the past week, I have been using the new Pinger Phone application that brings in my Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace social network friends and Yahoo!, AIM, Windows Live, and Google Talk IM contacts for a full and complete solution in a single package. There is also a server back end so that text messages can be used to notify you of new IM replies when Pinger Phone is not running. Check out some screenshots of the application in my image gallery.