The Change Mariner

BEDD: Social Networking Meets Bluetooth

Yahoo! News:

Student Gracinia Lim has made new friends thanks to mobile phone software that alerts her to compatible people nearby.

She is an early customer of a service in Singapore called BEDD that uses Bluetooth wireless communications to scan strangers' phones for their personal profiles.

The application joins a swelling number of Internet and mobile phone based services that offer to widen people's social networks.

Users download the BEDD software into a compatible phone, complete a short profile of themselves and include a description of who they want to befriend, or an item they want to buy or sell.

The software automatically searches for and exchanges profiles with other phones that come within a 20-meter (65 ft) radius. Matched users are given each other's contact details.

The software, created by futures trader Stephen Carlton and Swedish engineer Olle Bliding about three years ago, was launched last month in Singapore and will be rolled out in most of Asia by year-end.

BEDD differs from rival services in that it relies on phone-to-phone transmission, running on the short-range Bluetooth technology.

Posted by Timothy Fredel at June 23, 2004 11:21 PM | TrackBack
Related Categories: Area - Tech - Internet | Area - Tech - Mobile Communications | Industry - Internet | Industry - Telecommunications | Quadrant - Social | Quadrant - Technological | Theme - 'Digital Impact'

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