Loogic English

When Google Street View was first presented in Spain, we quickly saw how it was being used and adapted by real estate and travel portals.  But where a tool like this can realize it´s maximum potential is when it is combined with an application like Ipoki.

The best way to see the potential use of Google Street View in Ipoki is to follow Tatexo, an imaginary user, around different cities of the world. When this post was written, Taxteo was passing through Barcelona and it´s quite impressive to think about the implications this application may have on a variety of other sectors.  For example, virtual visits for tourism or better recognition of transport routes for the transportation sector, and so on.

I have to recognize that each time I become more surprised by the Ipoki team and the number of functionalities they add to their localization-based social network.  With the proliferation of GPS enabled mobile phones (even more so with the iPhone) , geolocalization tools like this will become increasingly more common for users.

Tooio is a mobile social network that utilizes geolocalization to know where we can find our friends and receive recommendations in relation to the places we are located at (restaurants, shops, …).  On April 30th we presented Tooio as a project that had just been born and subsequently had the opportunity to listen to their founder, Rafa Casado, talk about the objectives of the business.  We didn’t have much doubt that this was one of the most ambitious mobile projects of Spain and the recent investment assures this point.

The 1.5 million Euro investment in Tooio comes from the venture capital entity INICAP I FCR, promoted by the Community of Madrid and managed by Möbius Corporate Venture Capital.  The objective of the investment will be to finance the developments in progress (iPhone application, API, integration with other social networks, …), begin the commercial plan and help maintain long-term growth.

Good news for the sector and, above all, for projects like Ipoki that can take some time to bet on this type of model and also see that venture capital has confidence that mobile social networks have a lot of future ahead.

It has been some time in the making, but just until recently have they finally made their public launch. Of course, we´re talking about Keteke, a social network for Telefonica mobile phones.

But why is Telefonica Mobile Phones (Movistar) launching a social network? The truth is that it seems a bit strange, but let´s have a look at what Keteke is putting on the table:

User profiles, where you create and set all of your personal information, photos, videos and blog. My friends, with access to all the contents that your friends have created or uploaded to the web. Galleries, of photos, videos and blogs that have been added by users of the community.

To this point it´s a fairly a cookie-cutter social network, but here are some other interesting aspects that differentiate the site:

Keteke City, a virtual world where you can create a character and be part of a simulated city with pre-established groups (or factions) that can also be part of your friends. The characters inside of this virtual world are personizable and can participate within the game.

Keteke Movil, a way to participate in the social network from your mobile phone for free (until the end of the year) and send photos and videos that are also stored with your profile.

Keteke seems to be more of a generalist social network (competing with the likes of Tuenti, Facebook, Wamba, Festuc, MySpace, Sonic, Neopolis, …) with the added unique feature of the virtual world, very similar to what we have seen from Zed a year ago. For Movistar, it´s another way to attract new mobile users interested in uploading their photos and videos to the network.

The mobile version of Tuenti was the theme of the conversation on Tuesday in Seville with the friends of Flowers in Space. It was Bernardo Hernandez himself who talked to us about it and we immediately turned to our mobiles to try it out.

The first thing that draws your attention the moment you enter m.tuenti.com is that it asks you what you are doing at the moment, which means we are talking of microblogging or a Twitter within Tuenti.

If you continue surfing, you see that you have access to your profile, to see your list of contacts and to the messages in your inbox. Clicking on the profile of your contacts, you can see the photos they have uploaded, and as Javi Hernandez puts it, this could be a danger for the productivity in classrooms because of students browsing photos on their mobiles.

Another topic that I find very interesting is the phone list, from which you can access those contacts who have entered their mobile phone number in their profile information, so now there could be people who have their phone list in Tuenti.

I would like to know if, with the launch of the mobile version of Tuenti, there would be an increase in flat-rate contracts for internet connection on the mobile. I have the impression that with time, many young people would want to go for a flat rate to avoid seeing their mobile phone bill shoot up with the use of m.tuenti.com

Ana Belen Ramon, better known as Missha in the world of web design has informed me about the launch (in the “preview release” phase) of Wolpy, a social network for travellers to share their travel experiencies.

Missha is responsible for the design of Wolpy (I love the design, congratulations Missha) and the programming has been done by Miguel Abad.

Having launched in “preview release” for now, Wolpy only allows you to create a map of the places you have visited in your trips and to carry out reviews of the places mentioned. As in all social networks that take pride in themselves, you can share these places with your friends and get to know the places that they have visited.

Once the launch phase is over, the next step would be to allow users to upload photos and videos of their trips besides being able to recommend other users on the places to visit.

The ultimate goal of Wolpy is to become a collaborative travel guide on a global scale.