Microsoft
has launched a new mobile social networking service, called
Slam.
The beta service
has been launched by the Microsoft Research Community Technologies
Group research project and developed in conjunction with the
Microsoft Photo and Imaging eXperience (PIX) team.
Slam is a mobile
device-based application that enables group-centric real-time
communication, location awareness and photo-sharing.
When a user sends
a message in Slam, it is automatically sent to everyone in a given
group.
Smartphone users
that with the Slam client installed will be buzzed to notify them
of a new message, along with an indication on the phone's home
screen. SMS users will receive the message as an SMS from the Slam
server.
A major feature of
Slam is that users can also see where other people in their groups
are on a map.
The Slam client
will periodically let the server know where it is, then, when
someone in a group requests it, the server generates a map using
MSN’s Virtual Earth with everybody’s location marked.
This feature does
not require a GPS device, as it determines locations based on the
cellular towers the phone detects. This feature only works on
smartphones. For security, the feature can also be switched
off.
The Slam
application will run on any Windows Mobile SmartPhone. The Slam
smartphone client does not use SMS to send and receive messages, it
uses HTTP to post messages to the server and to poll for new
messages.
Slam uses the
mobile operator’s data pipe on smartphones and the usual texting
service on standard SMS-enabled phones. Users with smartphones can
choose just to use SMS, but this limits their functionality.