mates is a location-based social networking system developed at the University of Michigan and aimed at introducing and connecting people based on the intersection of physical location and other properties they might have in common.

With mates, your IM program could automatically create buddy lists based on the people in your classroom, office building, or neighborhood; you could be informed via SMS when old friends happen to be nearby or your laptop/handheld could connect you to a live feed of information about nearby people and events.

The open infrastructure will allow existing software to harness the location based social networking and a platform on top of which other new applications can be developed.

Via del.icio.us.