Zemble, a mobile social networking startup based in Downtown Los Angeles, launches today. Founded by Doug Ludlow and Johann Moonesinghe in March 2006, they've raised $90,000 in a seed round, and they're considering whether to take on venture capital.
They're doing some neat things with the Zemble site, too - as well as creating a profile page and building a network of friends, you can choose from around 80 profile skins, embed videos from YouTube and link to your pages on other sites. Soon, they'll also add support for phones that don't allow you to send SMS messages, advanced customization of profiles (adding widgets, designing your own theme) and an AJAXy events calendar that will send out event reminders. Other upcoming features include the ability to join groups based around certain interests, and mobile alerts like news stories, weather updates and sports scores.
Mashable hasn't covered every startup in the mobile space, but some noteworthy alternatives for group text messaging include Mozeo, Kiboze (reviewed by SomewhatFrank), 3jam and Twitter, a product from the podcasting service Odeo. Dodgeball is similar, too. Although comparisons are tempting, I don't see much difference between these services right now - apart from the fact, perhaps, that Twitter allows you to make messages public. That's not a feature I'd use, but it does make browsing the site a lot more fun. The verdict on Zemble, meanwhile, is that they're off to a good start.
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