I blogged about Fire Eagle last week. Remember? The service that stores and brokers your location and provides a host of APIs for anyone wanting to integrate location data into their web apps.
That post got 0 comments, which was a bit surprising. I thought Eddie or Dan or Matt would be geeked to check out Fire Eagle, ideally coupling it with Twitter for geo-location at OpenWorld. After all, ad hoc meetups like the one Rich and I had with Lou Springer last year would be way easier if you could our locations see on a map (like from Fireball) or by tweeting command to get our locations (like Firebot).
Maybe it’s because Fire Eagle is still in closed beta.
I contacted the Fire Eagle team, and Jeannie was nice enough to give me 20 invites. So, if you want one, leave a comment, hit me up on Twitter, whatever. Get ‘em while they last.
I found another sweet use for Fire Eagle in social network du jour, Brightkite. Brightkite uses your location, plus your friends to facilitate real life social interaction. I know, hard to imagine. It sports a sweet mobile integration and has some nice bells and whistles, like Twitter integration for contacts and location updates.
Plus, they have a Fire Eagle app that can read/write your location from/to Fire Eagle. It’s pretty well hidden though; you’ll have to dig to find it. Psst, in Account Settings, on the Sharing tab, below the fold. Or see here, way down at the end of the post.
The combination of networks and location is solid. You have all these “friends” online, and some of them you might actually want to meet. Then again, you might not want to meet the people who throw sheep at you in Facebook.
It’s even more applicable to business contacts and colleagues. Say you’re traveling and need to find a meeting or the local Oracle office. Or your pals Rich and Raimonds are coming to Portland for RailsConf. Be easier to find them if they told you where they are.
Anyway, I think it adds a useful dimension to your network. Problem is it’s not that easy to figure out how Fire Eagle updates these apps. I’m still trying to get it right. If anyone knows how Fire Eagle works in detail, let me know; I have questions.
Or hit me up for a Fire Eagle invite and help me test. Jeannie tells me they may be in public beta before OpenWorld, but I can’t wait that long to get started.
