I've just come across Mobshare.in, which is a mobile media sharing website. Mobshare.in allows its users to broadcast their photos by sending one MMS to a centralised server, which then sends a message containing a download URL for that picture to all of their friends.

It's pretty cool cause it saves mobile phone users money, especially when they are involved in large networks of friends. However, what really makes this particular website interesting, is that they opted to move beyond the operator realm (i.e. providing the service via MMS), into the physical realm, by offering people in CCD shops in India, the ability to upload their photos, via bluetooth hotspots. This, of course, means that uploading pictures is now free.

Also, it provides a new, interesting, social networking aspect, that of bringing together disparate spaces (and thus people in them), using photos as the common interaction space.

Photos (and other media files uploaded) are then published on mobshare.in, other mobile phone screens and finally, but more importantly, on screens in other CCD shops, all across India -- impressive!

Up to now:

BlueZones are now installed at 30 CCDs in Mumbai, 24 in Delhi, 4 in Gurgaon & 2 in Kanpur.

..but according to Mobshare, the number will soon rise.

Trying to find out more information about the bluetooth hotspot network, I also came across this blog post, by Saurabh Garg, who describes first-hand the experience in one of these locations:

Users can connect using bluetooth and uplaod their pictures and other media files on mobshare servers for free. These files are then made available on mobshare.in, WAP portals, mobile screens and are displayed at CCD outlets on DSN screens. Mobshare is all the more interesting because they are available across the country. Sitting in Mumbai, I can see what youth at, say, Kanpur is doing at a CCD.

Saurabh also suggests possible groupings for photos uploaded, based on his own experience:

Its amazing the range of images that users share. An account planner can easily spot certain trends. Apart from sharing pics of themselves (aspiring models? lure of a big screen? gratification?), there are pictures of groups of people (my friends are more important than anything else), bikes (bikes are still the “cool tool”), gods (how? why?), pets (understandable), movie stars (fandom still sells more cola in India than any other gimmick) etc.

If anyone from Mobshare.in is reading this, my congratulations on a well-thought-and-played move. They've managed to turn an essentially web-only and used-to-be-just-another-media-sharing-website into a social phenomenon, just by bringing the physical space into play, cleverly exploiting bluetooth. I am sure I will be hearing more about this soon!