Location-Aware Social Networking & SMS Marketing

Joe Bartling has an excellent piece about location-aware social networking. He was inspired by our current WIT victim, Joe McCarthy and Joe McCarthy's post about familiar strangers in India.

Joe Bartling goes on to list a bunch of these types of services that are popping up:
Familiar Strangers Project @ Intel
Jabberwocky.
dodgeball
Encounter Bubbles.

Other new services, that I've discovered around the blogosphere (especially Joe McCarthy's blog)
Launched recently, is whoat.
Mobule
Porchdog Software's Howl which is a web server for the pocket PC that discovers other "local" servers. (found here.)
RFID Chip Implants in People.
BEDD.

I have seen many people texting other people in bars and clubs. To coordinate plans, talk because it is too loud, etc.

BUT, DOES ANYONE USE THESE FANCY SERVICES? I am interested in consumer and business experience with using SMS et al and using mobile social networking to get the word out from b to c and/or virally.

At WNL, we are experimenting with sending sms messages about local nightlife events to people that have opted-in online. We just sent the first one today. I'll update this post with the progress/feedback.

Update: Gregory Narain has an excellently succinct post about a few mobile social networking services. As always, he frames the discussion well and highlights the important stuff going on.

Update II: Two Great Blogs for this Mobile Stuff: cheesebikini as recommended by Joe Bartling and the Mobile Technology Weblog.