Students who can't seem to pry themselves off their cell phones or computers will be happy to know that a new program has recently tied the two together. Critics fear the technology could feed to an already growing disconnect from real-life social interaction among its target audience.
A new technology called Rabble combines the know-everything-about-everyone aspect of MySpace with the reach-anyone-anytime advantage of a cell phone.
MySpace or LiveJournal fans can subscribe to Rabble through mobile accounts with both Verizon and Cingular wireless for only about $3 a month, offering access to almost 10,000 channels, similar to MySpace and Facebook profiles on the Internet.
Those who subscribe to your channel, affectionately entitled your "fans," can see your profile, blog posts, interests, and pictures. Rabble's creators said the program takes advantage of the youth social movement into online communities and wireless communication.
"This generation is fundamentally different in how they view the media," said Derrick Oien, the CEO of Intercasting, the company that produced Rabble.
Oien believes that rather than being fed forms of entertainment, young people desire more and more to create their own media to their liking. Rabble takes this type of entertainment, similar to sites like Facebook and MySpace, and makes it portable and direct.
Oien also made the point that real life stories are almost always more absorbing than television or the movies. Posts on one's channel can range from sighs of boredom at work to angry rants about heart-breaking boys.
Subscribers, or "Rabblers," can make friends and chat with any stranger across the country, and discover as much personal information about that person as he or she is willing to reveal.
"Rabble serves as a platform to extend social connecting on the Web to cell phones," Oien said.
The social networking device also brings together people of common interest, whether they're scattered across the nation or here at UB. One such channel is "Witness," a human rights advocacy group that strives to expose abuses of such rights by capturing them on film. Rabblers can join the fight to end human rights violations by subscribing to this channel.
Numerous musicians are a part of the Rabble community as well, and fans can access tour dates, concert pics, and get in touch with others who admire the music.
However, many believe this product, which is expected to attract an audience of mainly 13- to 25-year-olds, could further the addictions that many teens have to sites like MySpace and Facebook.
"I'll go on MySpace to just check my messages, and end up looking at other people's pages for hours without even realizing it," Paige Anderson, a freshman undecided major, said.
Having almost 10,000 different people's lives at your fingertips also makes it easy to sit in the back of the classroom and ignore your calculus teacher's lesson on derivatives in favor of reading about some love triangle drama.
Yet many simply don't use their phones enough to be interested in Rabble.
"A phone is small and awkward to type on; it restricts you," Rajarshi Chakraborty, a graduate student in communicative disorders and sciences, said.
Despite these concerns, the Rabble community seems to be growing, and company officials expect to incorporate audio and video into the service soon.
Still, many social networking products have a downside that outweighs the appeal for some, like Stephanie Lam, a freshman chemical and biological engineering major.
Lam thinks devices like Rabble, which allow strangers to know where you live and what you do, make it too easy for an unwelcome "fan" to invade her private life and maybe even stalk her.
"It's too personal," she said. "If I want to meet someone, I'll do it on my own."
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
