Glympse puts location-sharing on Facebook before Facebook does |
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Redmond-based location-sharing startup Glympse has updated its apps for iPhone and Android to give users the option of automatically showing a dynamic, live map of their location to their Facebook friends. The new feature expands the service beyond its existing distribution channels of email, Twitter and text messages.
It also puts Glympse out in front of Facebook's own plans. The popular social networking service has signaled its intent to integrate location-sharing as a native feature of the site, but it hasn't been rolled out yet.
Glympse, launched last year by three Microsoft veterans, lets people share their location on maps with specific people or groups for limited periods of time, which they can specify and control to maintain privacy.
Common uses include sending a message so that other people can see where Glympse users are when they're late for a meeting, or taking a long trip. Recipients of the Glympse users gain access to live maps that show the location of Glympse users in real time, with an arrow moving along a road if they're driving, for example. In that way, it's more sophisticated than simple declarative check-in services, such as the popular Foursquare.
Glympse's Facebook integration uses a Facebook Connect unified login to allow people to choose to share an embedded map as part of their news feeds on the site. Apart from the location, the real-time map can show the speed of travel and the estimated arrival time, if the user designates a destination. The user sets the amount of time the location-sharing lasts, up to four hours, and after it expires, friends can only see where the Glympse user was immediately before the time period was over.
Apple approved the update to the free Glympse iPhone app on Thursday, and the Android app was made available in the Android Market around the same time.
As we reported last week, the iPhone's upcoming addition of third-party app multitasking will also give a boost to Glympse, letting people continue sharing their location via the device even if they exit the Glympse app to do something else on the phone. That capability is already available with the Android app.
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