Google Latitude and Geo Social Mobile App getting Traction

This week was really interesting for jTribe. The biggest impact on us was:

Google has released Latitude 

which lets you see your friends on a map

Google's Latitude shows your friends an a map and allows you to share your current location with friends. 

Not a completely new idea. There are many similar tools out there which want to achieve exactly that. In the US there is Loopt using basic mobile phones to determine a user's location and to share it. With the iPhone and Android device these apps popped up like mushrooms. jTribe alpha-tested a program on Android that allowed you to invite friends and show them on a map (pretty similar to Google Latitude). The app was based on some ideas wrote earlier about (becoming micro-social). We abandoned the app 2 month ago. The feedback from our Android users was not encouraging so we removed the app again. Maybe we should give the app another go now that Google is creating awareness. 

Thanks Google!

The Google Latitude announcement created some good hype around mobile Geo apps. We did notice a huge surge in the sales of our iPhone based applications. We moved from rank 200 into the top 20 paid apps category. Thanks Google! 

Growing Market for Mobile Geo Social Apps

I am very excited about what is coming next. Now that Google has created awareness for mobile geo social apps and people start to get more interested in those apps the market will grow. Analyst have predicted huge growth in this segment since years but I thinks it needed a leader like Google to kick-off that growth. (again, thanks Google!)

jTribe is going iPhone

jTribe has finished its first iPhone application. It's called FirePin and is a simple iPhone app that allows a user to track trips. We have chosen a minimalist approach and tried to avoid things that we found annoying on other iPhone apps.

Yes it is yet another tracking app. But this one is different. This is not a hard core GPS tracking system. It is about letting other people know where you are on a trip. Sharing and protection where the key design features of the app.

Introducing our "no sign-up"approach

When the iPhone came out I ended up with 5 new user accounts on the Internet and stopped using apps that ask me to sign-up. Our app does not required the user to sign-up. Install and use it straight away.

"no sign-up" and still protected

The location data that is send to our FirePin location store is kept anonymous. It is impossible (even for us) to conclude who has submitted locations.

Power to the iPhone user

The user can manage and control all data from the iPhone.

1. Creating new trips,
   
2. sharing trips with friends and family,
   
3. accessing trip history and
   
4. displaying trips in the iPhone Map application.

However, access through a non-iPhone web browser is also possible and supported and offers some more advanced feature such as post-editing trips interactively in our integrated Google Maps application.

We are using it too

The jTribe folks (who are owners of an iPhone) are using FirePin too. Our first-time users thought: "Why should I use this app?" But then we found heaps of useful things we could do with it and it became kind of addictive.

Things to do with FirePin

1. Letting our partner know how far we away from home.
2. Sharing our holiday trips
3. Letting coworkers know how far we away (when stuck in traffic)
4. Record outdoor activities such as running, bike riding, hiking (not swimming)
5. Mark a fishing trip and keep it for later reference
6. Share a trip with family members so they can track you on your way to a family gathering
   

We hope that other iPhone users find it as useful as we.

Ah yes, and it's actually free!