Mobile social networking is changing people's lives

Take for example the developing story of Mr Storm. On 6th November Mr Storm and his wife are going to embark on an adventure. They are going to hop onto their 125cc scooter and, with little more than the clothes on their back, travel around the country to meet up with the new buddies they have made on DateClub. They are going to use DateClub to document their trip, stopping every couple of hours to post updates and to add new photos so that others can share in their journey.

DateClub, a service available to anyone over 18 with a WAP enabled cell phone, is for the most part used by single people interested in dating. However, because it provides an easy and convenient way to meet and stay in touch with people, Mr Storm is using it as a social networking tool. Here is the story as explained by Mr Storm in the messages he posted on DateClub.

“Mrs Storm and I are planning an adventure. You are the first we are telling. I want your input if you can. Before things get too expensive and we too old, we have not seen all of our beautiful country. We have also made good friends in Bloem, Kimberly and quite a few in Cape Town. All the places we have not seen. We have a 125cc scooter and the end of the month we want to take it and go via the route of our buds and go to Cape town, and meet DateClub buds. We want to include DateClub on our journey stopping every two hours, go on line and report how things are going. Adding pics of the trip as we go.

“All of our buds are from DateClub. We only have three friends here in Boksburg. All our other friends were made right here. We still want to get to know more DateClub members. There are some really great people here. We have made some friends for life.

“Since our message to buds we have been getting requests to come Natal way to. We want to have a great time and help make the site that made this possible for us the most popular site to be on. Thank you for your support :)”

When Ewe Ruszczynski, Marketing Director of DateClub's parent company BlackHatMedia, heard about the story she was touched and DateClub decided to sponsor some of Mr Storm's expenses for the trip namely petrol and toll gate fees to help the couple along the way.

Ruszczynski said, “It is exciting to be part of something that is changing peoples lives and launching them on new adventures. While DateClub has thousands of traditional success stories where people have met their soul mates, we thought that this story was a particularly interesting illustration of how the online mobile world is complementing the offline world when it comes to how people socialise.”

For more information on DateClub or updates on Mr Storm's adventure please contact or visit wap.dateclub.co.za on your WAP enabled cell phone.