I’m working for a company who just launched a service called Moot (http://www.moot.com) that lets users discover other Moot users–friends or strangers–on a WiFi network for the purpose of sharing files, finding out stuff about other Moot users, chat, etc.

Currently we are playing with the idea of offering a kind of location-based service that notifies users when interesting people/places/etc. are nearby. We just wrote about some of our ideas at http://moottalk.blogspot.com/2008/11/proximity-based-social-networking-moot.html

Obviously, it is a big step to take a wifi file sharing utility and transform it into a location-based service along the lines of Loopt. So far we thought perhaps the advantage of a proximity-based approach was less concerns about privacy. Perhaps there is a cost issue as well (?).

Let’s focus: isn’t Loopt’s biggest challenge actually REVENUE (lack of users or even a credible business model for the users they DO have) and not COST at all? Isn’t the Loopt service generally offered for FREE already (on Sprint, iPhone, etc)? How is cost holding anything back for them?

Look, I love the idea of being able to see where my friends are on my mobile phone. I really do. But Loopt has not cracked the code yet in terms of getting enough customers or getting PAID for the customers they do have. I’m skeptical that a branded mobile-social network ever will in the face of large existing social networks (Facebook, My Space, etc).

This feels like a meaningless “news” item and a distraction for a company that needs to focus on creating a legitimate business.

Can someone help me connect the dots? What am I missing here?

In North America, the carriers control the access to the GPS by making it available through their network. The only exceptions to this are autonomous GPS devices like the iPhone, Blackberry Curve and Nokia N95, where the GPS data is available directly from the device.