GPS to help you track friends

Combined with mobile Internet access, the Global Positioning System is seen in the industry as adding a new dimension to social networking that could also have implications for the media business.

"GPS tells me that today, I'm sitting somewhere at 48 degrees north, 2 degrees east. Is that really that much value, if I know I'm sitting in Paris?" said Miles Flint, president of cell phone maker Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications.

But he sees that notion changing.

"One of the more compelling things that we might use every day is the integration of that information into knowing where my friends are," he told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in Paris this week.

GPS chips use satellites orbiting Earth to determine the exact position of the user. They are found in car navigation systems, which have surged in popularity in recent years, and the technology is now making the jump to mobile phones.

Once people can physically find friends and family members--as long as they want to be found--it can enhance the establishment of growing Internet social networks such as News Corp.'s MySpace.com.