Edited by author 07-24-2003 05:52 PM
What the flashmob movement needs, imo, is better use of technology. You should be able to join a network that allows anyone to suggest an event. Preferably you sign up with a mobile device email. Although anyone can suggest an event, you can tailor your preferences to only receive events from certain people via a list you maintain and also a reputation system tailored to your tastes (maybe you like events of a certain political nature, or just silly things) maintained through a Tivo-like monitoring system and networked karma. The events should be geocoordinated. For example you can create an event and send the invite to people within a certain radius ("We're going to mob a megacorp retail store in Union Square now ...meet at....").

Once an event is posted, interested people should be able to see in realtime the participant response, so you can tell roughly how popular a certain event is.

I'd start coding something like this myself if I had the time. Opportunistic companies such as Amble Connect are already trying to move into this space. Soon flashmobs will be co-opted, just another way of targeting ads.