I saw that a number of folks (including Joi) recently gawked at Plazes, a new social networking/proximity/mobility offering.

Joi Ito

[from Plazes and Wallop]

Yes. Yet another social networking site... I decided to play with this one for awhile before blogging it to make sure it was significantly different. I think it is. Plazes takes your IP address and tries to figure out where you are. If you are in a new "plaze" you can register it by entering the address, uploading pictures, making comments. You can see who is online and where they are. You can see people by how far away they are from you. I imagine that once it gets going, most common hang outs will have lots of comments and pictures and you will be able to find people in your vicinity to hook up with. It's a bit like a laptop version of dodgeball. I'm "Joi" on Plazes.

I'm not all there yet with the model of use, but there is a swarmth (karma) system involved based on creating new "plazes" -- the more you create the more swarmth you get. Presumably you can apply this in some way, but how you exploit swarmth is unclear to me at this time.

I encountered a now fixed Windows bug when I first installed, so it wasn't working until I reinstalled a new beta today. To bad. I could have tagged a few Starbucks in NYC Tu-We.

The service uses a "friends/others" duofold profile model, which I like. I have posted all my IM services there, and made them public, while I make email private, available only to friends.