A mobile phone service that lets users scribble 鈥渧irtual graffiti鈥� in a street or neighbourhood is to be launched in the UK on New Year鈥檚 Day.
The service lets users post a message to a mobile phone zone, or 鈥渃ell鈥�. When a user logs onto the TagandScan site using their cellphone, they can opt to be automatically located according to network cell from which they are calling. They can then create a message or view ones already left in that cell by other users.
The system will work on phones that can run programs written in the Java programming language, which are now common. There are public areas that anyone can tag as well as private ones that can be restricted to selected friends. Each text tag can also have an image attached to it.
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TagandScan was created by New York company Cimarrones and has been undergoing UK field trails for the past month. Cimarrones鈥� president Ryan Janssen says he has been surprised by the ways people have used the service in testing.
Preconceived notions
鈥淲e had some preconceived notions but people are using them in ways we never intended,鈥� Janssen told 快猫短视频. 鈥淔or example, people have used private grids to enhance their memory by posting Christmas lists.鈥�
Janssen believes people may also use TagandScan to organise political gatherings or create their own guides to a city鈥檚 bars and restaurants.
A few location-based services already exist on current GSM networks. In October 2003, a London company called Zingo began offering a service that automatically finds the nearest taxi to a mobile phone user.
Mobile phone operators plan to start offering even more accurate location-based services through 3G phone networks, which have been designed with this in mind.
But Andrew Brown, an analyst specialising in mobile computing with IDC, warns that it can a challenge to alert users to a new service and convince them that they need it. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a nice idea,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ut people might be unwilling to pay for it.鈥�