Next2You: a social application for nearby strangers.

Encouraging social interaction between collocated strangers has become an increasingly popular topic in Computer Supported Collaborative Work research and interaction design. The research aims to foster more social interaction between collocated people to, e.g., produce positive new encounters and increase social awareness. To address these social goals, we developed Next2You, a proximity-based social mobile application. Its design builds on the principles of gamification, progressive disclosure and light-weight interactions. This paper summarizes the novelties in the design and implementation of Next2You.