Doctor Shuki Glazer, who founded the start-up company Gteko, which, in turn, was sold to Microsoft for over $100 million, is the investor standing behind the intriguing start-up FaceFu, based out of Tel Aviv.
FaceFu, founded by Ido Gever and Eran Kirshenboim, runs a location-based social network, that utilizes the user’s mobile phone to place his location, and then forms a connection between the phone’s unique wireless address (either through WiFi or Bluetooth) and the user’s virtual identity on different social networks.
What sets FaceFu apart from other location-recognition cellular applications is that FaceFu does not require the user to install a dedicated application on his or her mobile device. The kind folks at FaceFu allow you to connect to their network directly, with no install necessary.
Users who are within range of a FaceFu server, will be able to automatically sign in to the service as soon as they connect to the wireless network available in the area. From that point on, they will be recognized by the company’s servers via the phone’s unique MAC address or other markers that define their cellular device.
When a user with a FaceFu account enters a physical location where a company receiver is installed (such as participating branches of the Aroma coffee chain, who were chosen to host a FaceFu pilot), he or she will be able to see other FaceFu users who are in the same place, and even activated automatic status-updating services (such as Twitter or Facebook) that will announce his arrival.
The service also allows the building of a mini-website, which forms an ad-hoc, localized social network around the physical location. In this way, a user at home can point his browser to the mini-site of a party, bar or rock concert and find out which of his facebook friends are already there, and who’s looking to make a fashionably late entrance.
FaceFu, who are currently in contact with several international firms, are already running several pilots in Israel. They have just launched the beta of their Hebrew version, MISVV, that will serve as both a pilot and a POC for their technology. Check it out, and let us know what you thought in the comments.
Translated by Itai Rosenbaum
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