Mobile is truly the next gold rush on the web. A few startups have attempted to make a run at a mobile social network, but none have gained any real traction. When someone creates an app that successfully uses the portability of most mobile phones to connect people together, it will be a huge cross-over success with mainstream audiences.
Everyone's always talking about the need for a new mobile social network, but one already exists - it's called Twitter. It completely sidesteps the fact that most mobile browsers suck (iPhone nonwithstanding) by building the platform on text messaging as the lowest common denominator.
I would love to have the ability to communicate with people in, say, the same coffee shop that I'm sitting in even though they may not know me. Can Twitter do that?
No, but it sounds like Loopt can
Surfing the web with Iphone's Safari is now the standard to which any other mobile project will have to reach. The UI is hard to beat and extremely enjoyable to use. I browse the web a lot on my Iphone - and enjoy every minute of it (except for the slow AT&T connection - but that will change soon hopefully) The Iphone really is, in spite of the hype, revolutionary.
At last year's Web 2.0 conference, Google's CEO said that local and mobile where the key hot areas, as far as Google is concerned.