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Article: IM presence: mobile and mappable.(FIRST MILE)
- Article from:
- Telecom Asia
- Article date:
- November 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Questex Media Group, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Just as the rise of instant messaging gave us buddy lists and the concept of presence (i.e. knowing when your IM buddies are online or offline), the rise of mobile-based IM and technologies like GPS are adding location to the mix.
Sprint Nextel in the US is the latest to the mobile "social mapping" party, signing a deal in July with GPS specialist Loopt to use its technology (which Sprint-affiliated Boost Mobile has been trialing since November last year) to launch a full-on version of the service. The trial alone drew 100,000 customers in its first three months.
Sprint is hardly the first cellco in the US, much less the world, to launch a mobile-based ...