Social networker In Real Life pushes Presence-Based Social Networking

Amsterdam-based social networker In Real Life (IRL) claims that the future of social networking lies in presence, not location. Presence gives you a sense of where your friends are and allows you to add elements of location and connection to all of your social networking and social media. The company’s product, IRL Connect, is currently in private beta. IRL claim that it is starting to evolve presence-based social networking on the internet, and then migrate to mobile devices.

What will IRL Connect do?

The fairly vague details provided in the press release are as follows:

New connections - It will increase the visibility of and enrich digital relationships, leading to connections in real life.

Deeper relationships - Real-life relationships will be more tangible regardless of location. Presence-based social networking reduces the feeling of distance by giving a visual connection by presence and making them feel very close.

Global citizens - Awareness of relationships by proximity will broaden our connections with the world and those around us.

Back to reality - Digital relationships have a wall of anonymity, which creates distance. Presence is a way to break down that wall, to re-attach to reality and maintain relationships and bring visibility where it didn’t exist before.

User generated content - With presence, user generated content like IM, video, photos and audio that previously did not have geographical context will now drive conversation and become part of the real world infrastructure.

Privacy by preference - Because locations are approximated, users get an added layer of privacy and control over what other users can and cannot see.

Localized advertising 2.0 - Localized advertising is more personal because it can be addressed to you based on your interest, location and profile.

What we think?

This is not a new idea. Other companies already doing something like this (and this is off the top of my head) are flagr, gatsb, socialight and loopt.

However, IRL have made quite a bold statement. It has started with the social networking market that currently exists on the Internet. It will then migrate that to mobile, presumably when it feels it’s ready. It’s interesting that IRL is developing this on the on-line web instead of mobile. I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes with that.

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