Cingular Says You Should Leave Your Friends Alone
For all the problems AT&T Wireless had, it was often more willing to experiment with innovative features. Part of that was the investment it received from DoCoMo which allowed them to create the mMode service. For example, back in the summer of 2002, AT&T Wireless launched an early location-based friend finder system, creatively named "Find Friends." While it never became a huge hit, a small group of people did use it. However, Cingular has now announced that they're shutting the service down as part of their integration efforts. It's no so much that they don't like it or that no one was using it -- but that Cingular's network just isn't set up to handle it, and they want to get everyone off the old "Blue" network.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
