Social networking sites breaking free from the PC

Inhabiting the real world may seem like a mobile, social experience to most people. But for the digitally dependent, riding a crowded bus can be more isolating than sitting in a room alone with a computer.

Now the cellphone screen promises to shatter the loneliness that devotees of social networking sites experience when they walk down a city street or wait in line at the cineplex.

Online social networking heavyweights such as MySpace and Facebook have added mobile features, and start-ups are scrambling to allow people to share every moment, from the sublime to the mundane, with their network of online friends through voice, text, pictures, and video.

Today, RPM Communications Inc. in Maynard is launching Utterz, a social network that lets people upload photos, videos, and voice snippets onto a website that functions like a news ticker, providing a stream of "utters" from friends and strangers.

MocoSpace, a social network based in Boston complete with blogs, instant messages, and forums is a social network centered on the phone. It was launched in October 2005 and says it has nearly a million members. It recently raised $3 million from investors.

Those join a cluttered field of competitors. Mobile social networks like loopt, currently available on Sprint phones, use GPS technology to turn phones into friend radars. Intercasting Corp. raised $12 million this year for its mobile social-networking efforts, including the location-based service Rabble. Handset maker Nokia bought Twango, a platform that allows users to share photos, video, and audio from their phones this summer and has launched a beta social-networking site called Mosh. Websites like Twitter and Jaiku have mobile components, letting people type constant updates about their lives into a stream that can be shared with friends who really care what they are up to when they are on the go, whether they're scaling Mount Rainier or riding the escalator at the mall.

"Social networking happens to be a popular thing with teens and young adults, with MySpace and Facebook and so forth hitting at a time when adoption of cellphones among teenagers is really high and getting higher," said Julie Ask, an analyst with JupiterResearch. "Who knows what a 15-year-old will like - as soon as one of their friends is doing it, it is cool."

Although only 3.5 percent of US mobile subscribers report logging onto a mobile social network site or blog even once a month from a mobile device, according to M:Metrics Inc., a mobile media research firm, investors and entrepreneurs see the cellphone world, with more than 200 million subscribers in the United States alone, as a market with massive potential.

Utterz, which also discloses $4 million in venture backing today, tries to distinguish itself by using voice.

Utterz has developed widgets for Facebook and MySpace that will allow people to upload photos, video, and their musings straight to their profile pages, but it also has a main page where people post a public stream of utterances.

Those range from messages like "Does anyone else know that refrigerators are so expensive, because this is news to me," to "I have no money and I just, like, fell in love with this person all over again."

Ultimately, the company hopes to create "channels" where in an almost talk-radio style people can "utter" about different topics and create a conversation among friends and strangers.

Most social networks are text-based, but for people who are staring at a 1-inch screen, a 12-digit keypad, and without an unlimited data plan, Utterz is trying to enable an experience "that isn't tied around the eyes and thumbs but the medium for communication we're most comfortable with - our voices," said chief executive Michael Bayer.

People can call on their phone to listen to a list of snippets to others, respond orally, and upload pictures or movies, while ranking other people's Utterz (four cows is the best).

MocoSpace uses a more screen-based approach, but unlike other social networks with a mobile component, MocoSpace is meant to be used primarily, or even solely, on the phone. That means that the forum posts, the blogs, and the chat room often read like text messages.

When the founders recently posted a question asking what the site's slogan should be, for instance, a user called doogiedoug wrote in, "mocospace:room 4 u,me,n that other loony next 2 u."

"The biggest difference, I would say, is that it doesn't assume you have a PC, so it lets you do all the things from your mobile - uploading videos and photos from your phone, instant messaging, chat," said MocoSpace cofounder Justin Siegel.

MocoSpace has the exhibitionist feel of MySpace, and content that ranges from the serious to the racy. But it has already proven it can make millions. The company uses mobile advertising to support its free service, and has already been profitable, which is unusual for an early stage start-up, said John Simon, a venture capitalist at General Catalyst who invested in the company and sits on the board.

"It's proven consumer behavior on the Internet, and proven advertiser benefit, too," Simon said.

"There's this whole mobile-centric generation, and they have the same needs as folks on the Internet, but they need new platforms and new technologies."

Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@globe.com.