A BBC News article justed pointed me towards a particularly interesting new facebook application:
Cityware is an application that helps you explore how
your real world and online social networks are intertwined. Using
Cityware you will be able to explore the network of people that
surround you in day-to-day life – whether or not they actually use
Facebook. For example, you can see who you and your friends spend most
time with and meet most often.
To use Cityware you need to add
it to your Facebook profile. Additionally, you need to own a
Bluetooth-enabled device, which you must set to "discoverable" mode.
Finally, you need to live in an area where Cityware is supported.
The Cityware video shows you how it works:
The video doesn’t really tell you much about how it works in practice and it’s pretty fiddly to set up. It’s a fascinating idea though and I am sure it or something like it will take off at some point…