Yahoo Warming Up Twitter-like FireEagle mobile “location†app
by Russell Shaw
Mike Arrington of TechCrunch has been test-driving Yahoo’s new and yet unreleased, mobile-friendly FireEagle. He notes the platform’s hype as a “Twitter for Location.â€
The concept: open APIs that enable streaming of your location info, and with that in place, auto-tagging of applications that can swim in the stream. For example, FireEagle could enable auto-tagging of your Flickr images and then, by noting the time the photos were taken, specify where you took the shot.
I guess that since FireEagle and Flickr are both owned by Yahoo (well at least now they are), that’s what some of us used to call coverged apps.
Apparently, though, this beta is more like an alpha. Mike laments the lack of iterative functionality. At this point, you need to type in your location, which the FireEagle service notes and the places on an embedded Yahoo map.
But this rather half-baked (you know the word I wanted to use, but my Mom raised a gentleman) semi-analog workaround necessary to start the fire in FireEagle, a far cooler functionality awaits.
“Soon,†though, you’ll be able to send a text message with your location, or use ZoneTags on Nokia 60 phones to broadcast your location automatically,†Mike writes. “They’ll also release a mobile site for easier text input. There will be a FireEagle embeddable badge that will show where you are. And, finally, they’ll have the mandatory Facebook application to update locations and track friends.â€
