HP tests Android-based mobile social network

HP plans to introduce 'the Friendlee,' a mobile-based social network, that will be able to intelligently recommend and prioritize contacts based on caller usage patterns.

"It builds a network of people that you communicate with, If you stop communicating with those people or you begin to communicate [with them] less they keep dropping down to the bottom of your list." - Bernardo Huberman, director of the social computing lab at the firm's Palo Alto research centre.

The aim of the Friendlee social network is to help users construct a more intimate social network, "Social networks that truly matter - those ones where you are actually communicated in a human sense - happen to be much smaller than the circle of followers," said Huberman.

The Friendlee system will also allow users to share their situational data, such as their location, local time, and weather similar to the Google Latitude and BrightKite services.

The application is currently being tested on Google Android and Windows Mobile handsets, and is expected to make an appearance at the Mobile HCI conference in Bonn, Germany between 15th-18th September 2009.

"The idea of a social network that deals with reciprocity - I call you, you call me, we interact and so on - is much more meaningful than a listing like your whole Rolodex of everyone you've ever met," explained Professor Huberman.