Plazes launches location-based blather

The Twitter generation can now go beyond telling the world what they're doing, and can now tell the world where they're doing it - though whether the world cares is open to question.

Plazes provides the kind of short-message updates familiar to Twitter users, but also links them to a specific place, allowing other Plazes users to browse by location as well as contacts. The service is available world-wide, for anyone who can think of a use for it.

TwitterVision provides some of the same functionality, but Plazes takes the concept further by linking to locations rather than just where the sender happens to be.

Plazes provides functionality much closer to Jaiku, though with the addition of forward planning ("I'm planning to be in this plaze at this time") but lacking the mobile phone integration; Jaiki is newly available as a Symbian Series 60 Widset or, in beta form, as a native S60 application.

Such services provide a useful outlet for the massively-egotistical-but-too-lazy-to-write-a-blog demographic - no doubt popular with advertisers of comfortable chairs and canned soft drinks. These people believe the world wants to know they're "drinking beer and having fun" or "attending a conference", but don't want to have to go through the bother of writing full sentences.

In common with other such services, Plazes has no revenue stream or recognisable business model, it's just hoping to hang around long enough, and grab enough customers, to find a way of making money before the bubble bursts. ®