The 2004 trend “toothing” may have been a hoax (the claim was that people in England were using Bluetooth devices to find nearby random hookups) but the Loopt Mix apt is keeping GPS-based text dating alive and well.
Loopt Mix was formerly integrated with the friend-locator app Loopt, but works well as a standalone app, especially if you don’t know other people on the actual Loopt service.
Loopt Mix’s purpose is to facilitate conversation with total strangers who are in close proximity. Users create a profile (or use a Loopt account) that typically contains a photo, name, brief bio, gender, age, gender you’re interested in, what you’re looking for and likes. On launch, the app displays a list of people by distance and the time of their last log in. I wish there was a way to sort by distance or by time because if you’re looking to make a face-to-face connection it doesn’t help you much if the person 0.2 miles from you was there seven hours earlier.
Loopt Mix utilizes push notifications to let you know when users start chatting with you, which makes it more likely that you’ll actually have a conversation with someone. However, the number of Loopt Mix users is still small and, depending on your location, not terribly diverse (most of the users near me are gay men).
If you’re still unsure if Loopt Mix is right for you, Ben Hoffman from Current TV’s Infomania tried using the app to get lucky. Watch what happens here.
