Nearby (previously named WNM Live / Who's Near Me) was a location-based social networking service. Nearby was originally launched in June 2010.. The site closed in September 2021 following a significant data break.

Background

Nearby was founded by Brian Hamachek. The company is located in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

. The company is a member of the Microsoft Bizspark program. On November 11, 2013, Nearby was accepted into the Fall 2013 session of the Stanford StartX accelerator. In January 2014, the company name was changed from WNM Live to Nearby. Nearby uses the

GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

unit in a phone or computer to determine your location and returns a list of users nearby based on relative proximity. Unlike several other location-based social networks such as

Skout SKOUT is the developer of a location-based social networking and dating application and website. SKOUT was one of the first dating and mobile people discovery applications to emphasize generalized user location. SKOUT is available on both iOS an ...

WhosHere WhosHere is a social proximity networking app created by WhosHere founders Bryant Harris and Stephen Smith launched in July 2008. WhosHere utilizes GPS location capabilities combined with a social networking platform that allows users to interac ...

, and

Grindr Grindr () is a location-based social networking and online dating application targeted towards members of the gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. It was one of the first geosocial apps for gay men when it launched in March 2009 an ...

, Nearby explicitly declares that the service is not intended to be used for dating purposes.

Platforms and users

A Windows Mobile 6 application was released on 6/2010. It was followed by a

Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design l ...

7 application which was released on 10/2010. A web and mobile web portal for the service was launched 4/2011. An iPhone application was released 1/2012. A Windows 8 application was released in 5/2012. An Android application was released in the first half of 2013. The service has a combined membership of just over 5 million users. The highest percentage of users were located in the United States, United Kingdom, and India (in that order). An Android app was released in January 2015.

Awards and recognition

The Windows Phone application was selected at the 2011

Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Microsoft Inspire (formerly the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, and previously abbreviated WPC) is a conference held annually by Microsoft Corporation for its partner community. At Inspire, partners are taught about Microsoft's roadmap fo ...

as the 2nd best application in the Marketplace. Nearby was selected by Microsoft as a Bizspark Featured Startup on April 30, 2013. The Nearby app for Windows Phone was runner-up in Nokia's Create competition within the NFC category.

Trademark dispute

Nearby was officially known as Who's Near Me until 6/2012. In 2011,

, a competitor in the location-based social network landscape, approached Who's Near Me and requested that they change their name. They alleged that the name was too similar to their own product's name of

and that it constituted

trademark infringement Trademark infringement is a violation of the exclusive rights attached to a trademark without the authorization of the trademark owner or any licensees (provided that such authorization was within the scope of the licence). Infringement may ...

. Although Who's Near Me originally agreed to change the name of the company, they continued to use Who's Near Me. In 5/2012, WhosHere filed a legal complaint of

unfair competition Unfair may refer to: * Double Taz and Double LeBron James in multiverses ''fair''; unfairness or injustice Injustice is a quality relating to unfairness or undeserved outcomes. The term may be applied in reference to a particular event or situ ...

cybersquatting Cybersquatting (also known as domain squatting) is the practice of registering, trafficking in, or using an Internet domain name, with a bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The term is derived ...

, and breach of contract against the company. News of the lawsuit was made public when Nearby CEO Brian Hamachek wrote a blog post about the matter in which he made a number of allegations against

. The blog post was picked up by a number of media organizations, including

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately $ ...

. Hamachek eventually agreed to change the name of the company to WNM Live (and later changed again to Nearby for unrelated reasons) and posted a joint statement written by both WNM Live and WhosHere."In Response to WhosHeres Statement"
URL accessed April 22, 2013.

References

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External links