EchoEcho.me is (Not) a New Social Network that Lets You Meet Up with Friends
Location based games like Foursquare, Gowalla or Oust.me are fun, especially if you live in a larger city where there is some competition and people actually use them. But is there any other way to use that GPS chip in our smartphones besides checkins and navigation?
EchoEcho.me thinks so. EchoEcho is a free application that will show you the location of your friends on a map. Meeting with someone? There’s no need to text them or call them. Just load up EchoEcho and you’ll get all the information you need. Oh, and they also hold a position on Nokia’s Developer homepage!
Yet Another Social Network? Nope.
EchoEcho is not another location-based social network that might get filled with people you don’t even know. You don’t even have to sign-up to use it; just install it and it’s ready to use it with everyone in your address book.
This is maybe one of the best things about EchoEcho – it’s usable and functional without forcing you into signing up for yet another feature that you probably wouldn’t use.
Let’s Meet!
Beside getting the location of your friends, you can share your location only with the people you want. That’s a great feature if you’re planning a drink or a dinner with your friends. Once you request someone’s location, you’ll be albe to see it only if you agree to reveal your own location.
You might be concerned about privacy, right? EchoEcho doesn’t store any previous locations and there is no history logged so they won’t track you.
Talking about dinner, EchoEcho will even suggest some great bars and restaurants nearby, so you don’t have to worry where you’ll eat if you’re in some big city. If you want to chat with your friends, you can directly from within the app, for free.
A True Smartphone Application
Most of the times, applications tend to get published only on one, maybe two smartphone platforms. It’s limiting because you can’t use it if your friends don’t have an iPhone or an Android device. Maybe all of your friends are using that app on their Androids and you, being the only one with an iPhone, can’t use it.
Well, you’ll be able to use EchoEcho on almost every smartphone available today. It’s available on Apple’s AppStore, Android Marketplace, Nokia’s Ovi store and BlackBerry’s AppWorld. The EchoEcho.me Windows Phone 7 app will be available soon.
