Tiny Gadget Hooks You Up With Like-Minded People Nearby [VIDEO]

Why sort through online dating profiles when a device could alert you when a potential good match is nearby? Instead of setting your gaze permanently at nametag level during conferences, you'd receive a text message when someone with a relevant business opportunity enters the room. And at a concert, you'd know who shares your taste in music without borrowing their iPods.

This is the world that magnetU, an Israeli startup, hopes to create. MagnetU is about to release a tiny "proximity networking" gadget, in the works since 2009.

The nearly weightless $24 gadget, which will officially launch in about six weeks, automatically creates a social network of relevant people carrying the same nearby. It compares your profile, in which you've explained what characteristics you are looking for, with that of others. When two devices make a mutually satisfying match, they alert their owners via SMS message or mobile app, ranking the strength of the match and delivering whatever contact information the device owners have allowed in their privacy settings.

MagnetU also provides Bump-like exchanges of contact information. When users press a "cheers" button and knock their devices together, they automatically send each other friend requests on all of their social networks, in addition to any contact information they've listed in their profiles.

Of course, the system has one large potential drawback: that you need to use a device separate from your smartphone. But founder Yaron Moradi believes that to be magnetU's greatest strength.

"GPS doesn't work indoors, drains your mobile battery and impedes on your privacy by making your physical location known," he says. "We came up with a solution that solves all of the problems with using mobile phones."

Users can change the profiles they broadcast, or their "social desires," depending on the situation. You might use a "social" profile that describes your ideal date when you're out to a bar and a "business" profile that describes your ideal business partner when you're at a conference. Brands can develop a social desires profile too. A concert venue might, for instance, develop a profile that connects users with similar music tastes.

Because the devices are only effective if others nearby are using them, magnetU plans to start at events and college campuses. As more people use the device, the business opportunity surrounding them expands. Imagine, for instance, how much brands would like to connect with specific types of people who have opted to receive deals within their stores. From a marketing perspective, this would be like a version of Foursquare that doesn't require a checkin.

From a social perspective, however, it's a very different thing than Foursquare. Instead of being an extension to offline connections, it creates them. It has a chance to create an ability that makers of apps such as Sonar have also coveted: the ability to connect with the people in your vicinity who are most relevant — without doing an awkward networking dance.

"We aren't telling you where your friends are," Moradi says, "we're actually making new connections with new people."

The question of whether the world is ready for these automatic introductions, or if people find them creepy, will make or break magnetU. Would you use the gadget? Tell us in the comments.

In the video above, MagnetU founder Yaron Moradi explains how he hopes to create a proximity-based automatic social network.