Nearby Live 1.37

Chatting with perfect strangers is what the Internet used to be all about back in the day. Things have changes a bit since then, mostly thanks to social networks such as Facebook, but they haven’t altered completely.

Nearby Live is an app that markets itself as an anonymous social network where you can chat with strangers living at the opposite end of the globe or right around the corner. The app needs to have access to your location so it can provide a list of nearby individuals.

Just how close is "nearby"?

Of course, not even this feature works too great. Our colleagues’ accounts from Iasi were provided to me on the Nearby list even though there are 387 kilometers, or 240 miles, between us (according to Google Maps). Other accounts presented as “nearby” were even farther away so I can’t help but wonder how the devs actually define the word.

Regardless, back to the app. Nearby Live has a simple interface that’s easy to navigate. You can view various streams of information. These can be organized by a few categories. They can be viewed chronologically, based on their distance, but also based on how popular they are.

Another tab accessible via the lower ribbon enables you to view people that are nearby, as well as some that are online or those you’ve added to your favorite list. For any of them, you can check out the profile which includes a photograph, their name, when they were last online, how old they are what’s their gender, as well as additional details such as their interests and photos.

As you look through these profiles, you’ll notice that some of the info there sounds a lot like the things you’d have to type in for a dating site. As soon as you check your own Profile page, you’ll learn why. Aside from the regular, name, age, and gender, you have to fill in your own interests and any additional information you want to share, as well as your location, preferred language, sexual orientation, relationship status, and the age-old “seeking” field, where you can pick between friendship, relationship or “anything,” whatever that may define.

You're not too safe

Nearby live collects your email address, username, age and location, data on your computer hardware and software, including IP address, browser or device. Your personal data, such as profile, posts and photos, can be used for marketing and to be passed on to advertisers.

The app allows you to chat with anyone of these individuals and it comes with no notion of “friendship,” unlike Facebook, for instance. While it’s not marketed as such, Nearby Live is pretty much a dating app and one that doesn’t look all that great.

Portable version:

• Nearby Live for Windows Phone
• Nearby Live for Android