The internet was buzzing the last few days because Facebook added a mobile feature to connect to people nearby:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/24/friendshake-facebooks-new-m...Since then they have taken the app offline:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/06/facebook-quietly-rele...
In the mean time, a company called FriendThem announced they are contemplating legal action against Facebook because they feel their idea was stolen:
http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/25/friendthem-sues-facebook-c...
Which made me think this idea is too simple to sue each other over. I wrote a clone in about half a day yesterday (the link above). For those interested in the technology, it's made with Python, Bottle.py, Gevent, MongoDB, CoffeeScript and JQuery Mobile. Code is here:
https://github.com/allards/connectnearby
The app would be much more useful if you could connect on Linkedin, Twitter or with a vcard as well. NFC would be perfect for this. What do you think?
