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Making “social” social again: Announcing Mozi

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Re: Making “social” social again: Announcing Mozi

#41

Post by jazzyjackson »

AlexandrB wrote: post #16
evbogue wrote: post #5

This kind of reminds me of the original version of the app called Color, where you'd see social posts organized by geo coordinates. Imagine being in a coffee shop and seeing a feed of every post and photo posted from within the coffee shop. The benefit being you could make friends in your area. Does anyone else remember this app? It came out around the same era as Path.

Color was right up there with Juicero in terms of go-nowhere startups. IIRC they paid the better part of 1 million for the color.com domain name[1]. [1] Ah, it was a mere $350,000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Labs#Launch

This makes me feel a lot better about my $300 .ai domain purchase for a side project I immediately shelved, but I suppose it's the same impulse just with deeper pockets.

Re: Making “social” social again: Announcing Mozi

#43

Post by nswizzle31 »

Pretty interesting idea - we really need more ways to nudge us to connect in real life. I actually created a fun little platform for people to try niche social networks together in a 30-day "cohort" and this seems like a great example of a social network that would be fun to discuss! Anyone can join at https://soshials.com/platforms/mozi

Re: Making “social” social again: Announcing Mozi

#44

Post by bigiain »

Disruptive_Dave wrote: post #31
morkalork wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must have been from a more innocent time.. It sounds super cool until you think about the privacy nightmare it could be? I'm thinking about how people managed to triangulate users locations from grindr, or the cesspit of bullying that YikYak was.

Friggin foursquare! We'd voluntarily tell the world exactly where we were at any given time (and where we weren't - at our homes).

But but but!

I was Mayor of my favourite coffee shop!

MAYOR!

(I must go and add that to my LinkedIn profile...)

Re: Making “social” social again: Announcing Mozi

#45

Post by neogodless »

giarc wrote: post #38

"The primary value proposition of Mozi (today) is simple: It lets you know when you’re going to be in the same place (city or event) as someone you know." This is fairly shortsighted. How many people actually travel from city to city. I bet the vast majority of people have a 3km bubble around their house and work and that's as far as they travel 90% of the time. Additionally, it tracks when you are going to an event.…

Makes me think back to Foursquare - it didn't tell anyone anything in advance but it did tell you who else was at your exact location.

Depending on your permissions and if you would let it know about Facebook events, calendar events, etc. then you might get notifications or see when someone is going to be going to the same restaurant, etc. I think events is the key, while you're focused a bit on city. They do specify event so that's something, perhaps.

Re: Making “social” social again: Announcing Mozi

#46

Post by neogodless »

skybrian wrote: post #29

Sending Christmas cards is old-fashioned, but it’s a pretty good indicator of who you actually know well enough to have their mailing address. (Or well enough to ask for it without it being weird.) No special app needed, since it can be done with a spreadsheet.

And you include everywhere you're going to be next year in your Christmas card?

Re: Making “social” social again: Announcing Mozi

#47

Post by bigiain »

duxup wrote: post #8

>For example, I just got back from Miami. Before going, I put my plan (just the city and what days) into Mozi. This information was shared just with my contacts (minus any I wouldn’t want it to be). So, even before going, I was able to see both the people I know who live there and other friends who were visiting at the same time, so we could meet up and make plans. >Mozi also helps you decide where to go. “Events” on…

> Still, I don't dislike the general idea.

An app that tracks your location (and future location), founded by a venture capitalist?

I'll pass thanks.

(I'd be interested to see it there is a way to build this in an e2e privacy-preserving way, perhaps built on tech used in Signal and the fediverse, where only you and your contacts ever see unencrypted data about your location and events?)

Re: Making “social” social again: Announcing Mozi

#49

Post by bigiain »

trustinmenowpls wrote: post #2

he doesn't discuss financials, but that's my first and only question: how is this gonna be funded if it takes off?

By selling the data.

Unless they engineer it so they do not have any data to sell, sooner or later someone's gonna sell that data.

They've weasel-worded their privacy policy to allow this, the buyer of the data just needs to pretend to be a potential investor or buyer:

"We may disclose personal information in the context of actual or prospective business transactions (e.g., investments in Mozi, financing of Mozi, public stock offerings, or the sale, transfer or merger of all or part of our business, assets or shares), for example, we may need to share certain personal information with prospective counterparties and their advisers."

Re: Making “social” social again: Announcing Mozi

#50

Post by bigiain »

naming_the_user wrote: post #23

To me, this looks like a fantastic idea, and something that could be really useful in a niche, but I think it's going to fly over the head of a lot of folk because it's fairly obviously targeted at highly mobile, maybe HNWI's who do a lot of travel - it's not going to be useful for "most" people.

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