Location Based Friend Finding

A data processing system for locating people, the method comprising:

• a storage device containing program code;
• and
• a processor unit connected to a bus, wherein the processor unit runs the program code to identify a number of degrees of separation from a requestor for use in searching for the people;
• search a network data processing system for data structures that contain information about associations between the people that are within the number of degrees of separation from the requestor to generate an initial group of people;
• identify a group of people from the initial group of people that are within a geographic location based on a location of a mobile data processing system and a portion of the group of people who are online;
• and display the portion of the group of people on a display device for the mobile data processing system.

A computer program product for locating people, the method comprising:

• a computer readable storage medium;
• and
• program code, stored on the computer readable storage medium, for identifying, by a mobile data processing system, a number of degrees of separation from a requestor for use in searching for the people;
• program code, stored on the computer readable storage medium, for searching, by the mobile data processing system, a network data processing system for data structures that contain information about associations between the people that are within the number of degrees of separation from the requestor to generate an initial group of people;
• program code, stored on the computer readable storage medium, for identifying a group of people from the initial group of people that are within a geographic location based on a location of the mobile data processing system and a portion of the group of people who are online;
• and
• program code, stored on the computer readable storage medium, for displaying the portion of the group of people on a display device for the mobile data processing system.