As promised, here is a bit more composed post on the launch of Face2Face. Pardon my excitement, many might not actually consider it an awesome, groundbreaking product but to me it means a lot. Especially coming from the region where doing something innovative is quite a daunting task. Lets put aside the negatives here and focus on the application alone for now. The app has been created by Proximate Global, headed by Hameed Khan from Pakistan and its Chief Technology Officer being Umair Aziz.
The main phrase in the launch was proximity based social networking. It had me scratching my head for a bit, I mean there are a lot of location based social networks in the likes of Gowalla, Foursquare, Loopt, to name a few what makes F2F swing away is it lets you consolidate your existing social networks. Those include the ever popular Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn, again this is different from the perception I had earlier that it was solely a Facebook App.
So What Does It Do?
Ever felt like there was some way you could know about a friend in your vicinity without needing to call a friend or two? Face2Face lets you do that and this is what proximity means here. Users can learn about the presence of a friend nearby without compromising your location. While connected to your existing social networks you can send instant messages, call and keep control over your privacy. Just like you do in your real life.
I was a bit worried when they said friends and friends of friends could know about you being in proximity. But that’s not so as it lets you customize the settings and decide who should know about one being at a close range. Block people, allow certain to have the privilege to know where you are heading to and if you feel all alone and think connecting with friends of friends can help you get a bit more socially active with mere acquaintances than Face2Face does a lot to help you with its feature.
Compatibility?
Runs on any device you call smart. Simply download the application here and get started. Whether you have an iPhone 2G, iPhone 3GS or the latest iPhone 4, a device running the Android or your loyal Nokia, it runs on almost every device out there.
The application has been launched officially and they will having a Press launch in the US on July 4. The event there has to be far more better and I bet it will get a lot more feedback from the blog community there. Best of luck to these guys for putting up a commendable effort and bringing us Face to Face, err I mean Face2Face.
The CTO’s name was misspelt earlier and it is Umair Aziz. Pardon me for the error.
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[...] contexts – enterprise/professional use, location, family, interests and so on. I even saw an interesting app built for ‘proximity based networking’ – it syncs your existing networks – [...]