Social Networking + GPS = Finding You

Friends in your online network can do more than read your blogs and see your photos. If you have a GPS-enabled phone, they might also know exactly where you are.

The new social networking site Bliin uses GPS to locate people, reported BBC News technology reporter Iain Mackenzie in an in-depth story June 19. After downloading a software application, a user’s location can be viewed by other users with similar phones or through Bliin’s website, where the positions are superimposed onto Google Maps.

Where in the world is Marlus? Location-based social networking
sites such as Bliin enable friends to find each other.

UK user Ian Walker says he wanted friends to see when he would be returning from a restaurant. “My friends followed me. I took a photo while I was outside the restaurant so they knew I was there. They saw me moving in the car. It even showed my speed.” Files are geo-tagged using the longitude and latitude taken from the GPS receiver.

Other companies are also developing social-networking websites: Trackut and Kakiloc, both in beta testing, and iPling is aimed at Apple’s iPhone. But MySpace and Facebook told BBC News they have no plans to integrate tracking systems.

“Social networking is a very volatile environment. People are going to one place and if they don’t like the feature set, they are ready to jump to the next one,” Kakiloc co-founder Martin Dufort told BBC News. “We need to capture their interest.”

Big Brother? The UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre is one organization concerned about abuse of these services. Its website states: “This has significant implications in terms of grooming via mobile social networking sites with offenders potentially able to locate their victims in this way.”

Bliin’s Stef Kolman thinks the problem is no greater than with conventional social networking, because users can set visibility settings, making them invisible to the general public and only visible to friends.

Then again, for a child, what exactly is the definition of “friend?”

GPS Beats Radar Gun

While police often use GPS to fight crime, one Australian used it to defeat a speeding ticket, reported the Australia Herald Sun. Brett Pownceby was issued a $215 ticket alleging he was going 119 kilometers per hour in a 110 km/h zone. To fight the charge, Pownceby downloaded data from his dashboard GPS showing his speed, distance covered, and exact location in snapshots taken every few seconds. The data showed he was traveling 21 km/h slower than police claimed. Police withdrew the ticket, then said that was a mistake and that other motorists shouldn’t expect to escape speeding fines with GPS records.

Rocketting about Town

Drummer Rikki Rockett likes to explore the cities he visits during his band Poison’s summer tour. In June, he posted a blog on his MySpace page asking someone to find him a Garmin Zümo 550 for his motorcycle, offering repayment plus show tickets and backstage passes in exchange. “I need someone to find this item so I stop getting lost on my motorcycle and can find my way back to the gig!”

Why seek help? “I can’t order stuff off of the net while I’m on tour,” he wrote. “Things never make it on time and they just get lost.”