Buongiorno has announced the official launch of peoplesound, it’s new mobile social network. Known as “blinko” when it was in beta, Buongiorno claims that the new network is the “evolutionary” link from computer-centric to mobile-centric social networking.
Buongiorno took advice from users and bloggers in the creation of peoplesound, and created a mobile network that is designed on the “private picnic” model – it is centered around closed circles of friends. Central to that notion is the idea of your “Favourite 20″ – the 20 friends that you keep in contact with more than anyone else. Peoplesound offers you 30 free SMS every day to keep in contact with these 20, so that even if you lack the Internet access necessary to access m.peoplesound.com, you can stay in touch with those 20 for free.
There are also peoplesound Channels – which are content channels maintained and updated by Buongiorno. Users can choose to follow Channels to receive updates on music, news, sport, celebrities, etc.
From the release:
“The meaning of peoplesound truly reflects the project’s philosophy: a social network characterised by genuine relationships and empathy among people”, says Mauro Del Rio at Buongiorno. “peoplesound is the result of extensive R&D and related enhancements, made possible thanks to the valuable contributions of the over 300,000 users, during the beta phase of blinko. The aim is to communicate and share our most important moments anywhere at anytime, with the people we really care about. With an exclusive option of either mobile internet or SMS based interactions, peoplesound provides users a real differentiator to all other networks.”
What we think?
This is quite a nice MoSo – by highlighting user privacy and enabling serious limits on your “close circle” of friends, it does live up to its claim of being “mobile centric”. A massive number of friends and updates is just not mobile-friendly – scrolling through that amount of content is not easy on the fourth screen. The free SMS concept is actually quite brilliant, but it does raise one very pertinent question – where’s the money? Peoplesound is proudly touting itself as a “free” service, and claims “we will not send you any advertising SMS on peoplesound” on it’s website. It offers free SMS, no extra charges on WAP or messaging, no ad-support… how do these guys make money? I’ve rattled an email off, and I’ll bring you an update one I get a reply.
