Another Bluetooth dating service - Bluehoo

WORD HAS REACHED the INQ of yet another 'social' network - called Bluehoo - which utilises the Bluetooth capabilities of most mobile handsets to create 'communities'. This is dating by another name.

The latest beta version of the software, 1.1, was actually released today [Monday 8th] and it does appear to be quite an improvement. Especially in terms of response times when you select an option.

The principle is quite simple really. Download and run the software, set up your profile, scan the immediate area for other 'Hoos' using Bluetooth and then message and adopt them.

Bluehoo allows users to set up a very basic profile: name, age, interests and – if you're lucky – photo. The INQ struggled to get the 'add photo' option to work very well.

Once other Hoos are found, it's possible to send them messages. This is the tricky bit. Bluehoo utilises the mobile internet to feed your location back to central servers. It's not clear whether inter-Hoo messages travel via Bluetooth or over the data connection.

The reason for detailing your location is obvious. Participants can download the [still forthcoming] Windows version of Bluehoo to their PCs. They can then try feeding the names of local towns in to see if any Hoos are detected.

If you find a match – in the INQ's case Surbiton, you jump on the bus; find the nearest trendy bar and attempt to locate other Hoos.

Now here's the boring stuff. There's various Java and Windows Mobile versions of the Bluehoo app. Below are the models covered so far.

Windows Mobile : - Palm Treo and HTC models (such as O2 XDAs). Strangely Bluehoo is also offering a Java version for both these handset types, too. A Windows Mobile version for Motorolas has problems because these phones aren't using the Microsoft Bluetooth stack.

Then there's a generic Windows Mobile version which the brave might try on a Sony Ericsson Xperia, for example.

On the Java front there is a version for Nokias and a separate version for Crackberries (naturally). There appear to be some issues with the Crackberry version at present, however. There's a Java version for Sony Ericsson which seems to be working and there's also two variant of the Java Bluehoo app for Motorolas – depending on whether the Motorola phone likes .jar instead of .jad.

Also covered by Java are LGs and Samsungs plus a couple of generic Symbian versions.

The bad news is that the software is very much still in beta. The very keen have already managed to sign themselves up to Bluehoo in various parts of the world including the UK.

A word of warning, ladies. If the guys you see have managed to sign themselves up and have an extremely high number of Hoo friends, they might at least be getting out a lot but that doesn't mean they're no geeks.

Download the Bluehoo app by typing m.bluehoo.com into the handset's web wap browser. µ