Can there be an app for Serendipity?

I think of technology as the ultimate Enabler, in both the positive as well as the AA sense of that word. If you want to be a shut-in, no problem -- you can shop for groceries, earn a living, even socialize from the comfort of home without uttering a single face-to-face word. If you crave intimacy, but find the psychic price of IRL interaction too steep, there's a (porn) site for you. And if having hundreds of Facebook "friends" truly gives you a sense of connection... well, obviously you're in sync with the masses.

But here's the kind of enabler most of us need: the kind that helps Opportunity find our door, that lets us know when we're actually in the right place at the right time, that nudges us to chat up the adorable stranger on the subway platform now instead of posting to "Missed Connections" later.  Everyday another hundred+ people get onto our trains, or walk through our parks, or lounge at our spots. Some of those strangers could offer us a job, produce our screenplay, share our love of Lego art, end our loneliness -- whatever. Not likely, perhaps, but possible. Facebook, et. al, covers the people we do know -- what about all the people we don't but maybe could? With all this GPS tracking and whatnot, technology has the goods to be that enabler, doesn't it?

Well, if location-based social networks/apps like StreetSpark take off, maybe technology will one day meet my high expectations.

StreetSpark is not the first to explore the possibility. There are an increasing number of such networks/apps that specialize in dating (such as Grindr for the gays, and AreYouInterested for the straights).  What caught my attention with StreetSpark, though, is that it envisions itself as having a potential audience that extends beyond singles.

In a nutshell, here's how it works: they use the info you provide about who you are and who you're interested in meeting to match you with others on the basis of proximity and convergence of interests. When you're out and about, you can turn on the service and view your matches on your mobile device. If your interest is piqued, you press "Ignite." If the stranger also presses "Ignite," you'll get to see more info about each other and then text or meet up.

But this post is not a promotional for StreetSpark, so for more information on how it works, check out either their website or YouTube page, where you can see the service in action.

Without a following of Facebook proportions, though, I doubt StreetSpark or any other location-based social networking app can be the serendipity scout I'm envisioning. It may be that any "spark" lies mainly in one's perceived sense of life's possibilities. Which is no small thing, that. Without that sense of possibilities, it's too easy to fall into the trap of feeling like nothing new ever happens, every day is the same as the last, and it's going to be Groundhog Day for the rest. of. your. life. Or is that just me?

What do you think about location-based social networking?