TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington posted about the future of social networking on cell phones. Previously he's gone into how physical presence detection will play a key role—meaning that mobile social networking isn't useful without the ability to get real-time location info, either via a built-in GPS radio or via cell phone tower triangulation. But in this report he goes further:

"The space is wide open at this point—no one has created an application that has gotten enough traction to go mainstream," he said—and ain't that the truth. That's mainly due to technical limitations of today's cell phones, which so far only act as cramped, clunky portable Web browsers.

"But it's coming. A few years from now we'll use our mobile devices to help us remember details of people we know, but not well. And it will help us meet new people for dating, business and friendship. Imagine walking into a meeting, classroom, party, bar, subway station, airplane, etc. and seeing profile information about other people in the area, depending on privacy settings. Picture, name, dating status, resume information, etc. The information that is available would be relevant to the setting—quick LinkedIn-type information for a business meeting, vs. Facebook dating status for a bar."

He goes on to detail some ideas from an unnamed company that could potentially put some of this into practice. We'll see—it's hard to get excited about this on one level, due to the deluge of mobile social networking companies that flood our inboxes, but this could be different—regardless, it's food for thought.

(Image credit: Hank Grebe/MediaSpin)