BARCELONA, Spain – Users of social network sites like Facebook will soon be sharing their exact whereabouts with their friends in real-time, owing to new technology that uses the mobile phone as a tracking device, experts say.
A new social network site, Gypsii, which launched this week at a phone industry trade show in Barcelona, allows users to search for and identify their contacts, be they in the neighbouring street or across the ocean.
“Look, that’s Bill, my friend in New York. He’s 3,800 miles away,” explained Toon Wee, a director of Gypsii, as he pointed to a coloured pin in the middle of a map of Manhattan while explaining the product at the Mobile World Congress in Spain.
The software, available for the moment on only top-end phones, enables users to find people, places and events in their local area, as well as share photos, videos and audio files with their friends.
“The real time location-based element of Gypsii adds a new dimension to the social networking phenomenon,” said the founder and chief executive of the company, Dan Harple.
Gypsii is compatible with other big social networking sites, allowing the core location-specific functionality to be transferred to a user’s Facebook page, showing their friends’ and their own location.
Dan Winterbottom, an analyst for IT research group Informa, says users of social networking sites are likely to be attracted by the idea of seeing where their friends are.
He accepts however that others will shiver at the thought of being watched or tracked by anyone, even (or perhaps above all) by their loved ones.
I am working on a similar concept for social networking and proximity based marketing, but far more localised. For example it’s Friday night and I am going to a bar for a drink and want to find out which friends are within walking distance, say no more than 1km away.
I am also working on a location based Facebook Application where you can invite people to go and do cool things together, for example Black Water Rafting. You will be able to invite people to go and do it together and once it is done, you will be able to blog and post photos about it.
Really grt job ur doing Luigi!!
All d best for ur works , we look forward to use it!!