Two students make last-minute plans to attend the night’s WaterFire Providence event, and want to round up a few buddies to join the fun. Using the camera in a mobile phone, they shoot a picture of a downtown coffee house and send it out to a dozen friends across the city, with a GPS tag, directions and a message instructing them where to meet at 7 p.m.

Or, if you like, several Ford Mustang drivers meet at a Providence burger joint and begin checking out each other’s wheels. Before long other car buffs in the area are receiving digital snapshots of the encounter on their mobile phones, with a map and geo-location information. In minutes, the parking lot looks like an impromptu car show.

It’s all possible with GyPSii, described in company literature as “a mobile social-network service that ties mobility and location together in real time.”

The software links mobile phones to the Internet and provides a single interface through which users can upload pictures or messages, tagged with GPS data, or browse content posted by others.

“Wherever you are, you can record audio, take pictures and video and then share it with the GyPSii people and communities you choose,” said Shane Lennon, GyPSii’s senior vice president for strategy and marketing.

The GyPSii software and service are the brainchild of partners Dan Harple, a Rhode Island native now living in Europe, and Scotsman Sam Critchley. Though the company is headquartered in Amsterdam, the largest office is in Warwick. They launched their product last year at a mobile communications convention in Barcelona and it’s fast becoming the Next Big Thing in the industry.

The service is now available in 55 countries, and the software comes embedded in mobile phones sold by Samsung, the No. 2 outfit in the industry, as well as Garmin, the portable GPS company. It can also run on the BlackBerry, the iPhone, and on Windows Mobile for smartphones. The software can be loaded onto a phone directly with a quick trip to the company Web site (gypsii.com). Click on the icon, and you automatically receive the correct version for your device.

What’s more, it’s free. The service is supported entirely by advertisers (unless you happen to live in China, where a monthly fee is charged in some areas.)

Of course, the software also works on a laptop or a desktop computer, but the product was designed to take advantage of the camera, the recording function, and the GPS technology that is a part of most phones sold today. Company literature boasts the product can transform a telephone into something entirely new, which it has dubbed a “personal digital life recorder.”

“We’re targeting Gen X and Gen Y,” said Lennon, who heads up the Warwick office. “Research shows that for many of them, their phone is the primary way they access the Internet. We surveyed the 18-to-25 group, asking them, which would you give up first, your mobile phone or your computer, and almost 65 percent said the computer.”

He also noted that young people are accustomed to using networking sites such as MySpace and FaceBook. As with those sites, the content for GyPSii is left to the users, a trend Lennon predicts will come to dominate the Internet in the very near future.

“In the last four years there’s been a major shift to users creating the content,” he says. “In the next three to four years, user-generated content could actually exceed traditional content.”

So what makes GyPSii different from MySpace, which also can be accessed by mobile devices? According to Lennon, it is the immediacy that comes from having users post their pictures, videos and messages from restaurants, campus coffee shops, bus stops or wherever they happen to be.

“MySpace and those other sites are all Web-based, which means they record in a past context. I would call that very one-dimensional,” he said. “With phones, it used to be difficult to jump between capabilities. Some people never figured out how to use them. They became hidden capabilities. What we’re doing is providing all that through a single interface, so that it becomes a seamless experience. It’s very easy to create content, or browse it and use it, and share it with your friends.”

GyPSii’s use of the GPS technology found in many mobile homes also makes it unique. Users can locate sites tagged by others, or leave tags so that others can follow them. And GyPSii helps users find other points of interest — including ATMs, gas stations and restaurants – through the online map provider NAVTEQ. You even can use GyPSii to track friends or let them track you. (For those who want to stay lost, there is a privacy setting.)

“That’s the vision Dan Harple had,” Lennon said, speaking of the company co-founder. “His vision was that we walk around with these devices, our phones, and many have the same power computers had 10 years ago. Almost every phone has a camera and built-in GPS. They have Web browsers. But it was all separate.

“What we’ve done is create one integrated user experience.”

Lennon said the company continues to look for new applications for GyPSii and promises more innovations.

“The main focus obviously is to make the consumer product better all the time,” he said. •