G2G: location-aware mobile social networking with applications in recommender systems and gaming

We present G2G, a proximity-aware social networking platform for Mobile Information Device (MID) users and its applications in personalized recommender systems and gaming. User proximity to a friend or a place is determined via GSM cell information. GSM cell information is greatly enhanced through the concept of user-defined "hotspots" which is the means that allows the system to expand the notion of proximity to include not only users covered by the same GSM cell but also users and/or hotspots covered by geographically neighboring cells making it one of the main innovations of our system. Overall, the system allows users to see nearby friends and chat with them, or leave notes and/or recommendations valid only in their current location. The system's flexibility allows for users to set-up their own treasurehunt games and other applications.