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.
