This reminded me of an idea I mentioned to a friend a couple months ago. The thought creeped him out a bit, but he didn't think it went to far. Basically, I t

This reminded me of an idea I mentioned to a friend a couple months ago. The thought creeped him out a bit, but he didn't think it went to far. Basically, I told him I expected something like 4square to come along that tells you not specifically who (strangers) is at certain locations, but give a profile of the overall group that has checked into the location. The easiest example could be just showing what bars in an area are currently filled with liberals, and which ones currently filled with republicans. Maybe even a sliding color scale that shows just how political they are or how heavily the population of the bar swing ones way. However, I would imagine it to include a much wider list of attributes to include things like what type of movies and music I like etc. and point out what locations are filled with like minded individuals right now. Or even based on moods. Or even things like what I want out of the night (show what percentage of the population at a certain bar is looking to make new friends so you don't end up at a bar full of people who want to be left alone). There was more to it than this, but I haven't thought about it for awhile. A second thing this reminded me of was the idea of an icebreaker app. You go to a bar, coffee shop etc., check in, and then the app asks you an icebreaker style question. You then type in your answer. After you give your answer, you get a list of every answer by everyone else at the bar (but not their identity). You then get to pick one of those answers as your favorite, and the author's identity (or maybe just picture, leaving you to still ask for the name) is revealed. Basically it reverses the introduction process. Rather than thinking of something clever to say and going around picking people to say it to, someone picks the clever comment and gets to approach that person. Finally, what this article made me think of that hasn't occurred to me in the past is the value of these networks to connect me to people in IRC chats / forums etc. The basic thought is to create chats accessible only to people 2, 3 degrees of separation away from you etc. (or with x amount of common interests, or whatever FB thinks would be a good match). You then have an option to start a chat, and then anonymously chat with strangers that are reasonably close to your real life contacts. This means if you hit it off with a random person on the internet just based off random interests you share then you have an actual ability to reach out and get an introduction in a safe way.