loopt

Social networking is fun. You can communicate with friends. You can share experiences with them. And you can even plan get-togethers. But finding where they are isn't possible with most social networks. You'll need to keep sending messages back and forth to figure out where to meet up.

With the help of location-based social networks, you won't have that problem any longer. All of the following services will allow you to see where friends are at all times. The guessing game is over.

Brightkite Brightkite is a great location-based service. After you download the free app onto your mobile phone, you can start finding friends.

When you become friends with someone, you can see their location as they travel away from home. You can also find folks who are in close proximity to you to get to know them a little better. Brightkite even lets you take pictures. That picture will then be geo-tagged, so your friends can see where it was taken. Brightkite is a really nice location-based social network. And since it works on any mobile phone, the Web, and an app is available for free in the Apple App Store, it's definitely worth trying out.

Loopt Loopt is designed specifically for GPS-enabled mobile phones. When you sign up, you need to input your mobile phone number. From there, Loopt will determine your location. You can then share your location with those who request to see where you are. You can even take pictures with your mobile phone and geo-tag them.

If you don't want someone to know where you are, Loopt lets you block access to your location. It's a great privacy feature. Loopt works with practically any mobile phone. It also has an app available for the iPhone. Both versions are free.… Read more

AT&T is offering a new service that allows parents--or potentially jealous spouses/boyfriends/girlfriends--to track loved ones using their phones.

AT&T's service, called FamilyMaps, allows people to track the location of any cell phone on AT&T's network from a mobile phone or PC. The person being tracked receives a text message informing him or her that he or she is being watched. The service periodically informs the tracked individual that he or she is being watched, just in case one text message reminder wasn't enough.

Users can either track someone in … Read more

Location-based networking service Loopt has now gone live in Google's Android marketplace, and is compatible with "select phones" that run the open-source operating system.

As with other handsets' versions of Loopt, the app lets you track your Loopt-using friends on a map and find other members in the area. They can also share their location with social-networking and messaging services like Facebook and Twitter.

Prior to launching its iPhone and then Android apps, Loopt was restricted to carriers with which it had signed contracts, like Verizon and Boost Mobile. Typically, it was a subscription service that cost … Read more

This post was updated at 10:55 a.m. PST with clarification from a source close to Allen & Co.

According to a TechCrunch report, mobile friend-finding service Loopt has looped in boutique investment banking firm Allen &Co. to land it a buyer or locate financing. However, sources close to Allen & Co. maintain that the $250 million number floated in the TechCrunch report is very high.

Loopt, which reportedly raised $13.3 million in venture funding from Sequoia Capital and New Enterprise Associates, is facing an environment where money is hard to come by.

Mergers and acquisitions took a blow in the third quarter, … Read more

Loopt, the friend tracking software developer, has struck a licensing deal with a Qualcomm subsidiary to help lower the cost of providing location services.

The company will announce Thursday that it has signed an agreement with SnapTrack, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm, to use QPoint location-based server software to provide social mapping and other advanced location services.

Location-based services are expected to generate a lot of money for carriers in the future. Already, most major mobile operators are offering some kind of location-based service, such as GPS-enabled navigation or tracking. But the service hasn't taken off in any … Read more

Loopt has an appealing application that allows you to track your friends and allows them to track you on a graphic map. It's kind of like a GPS-sonar radar that I've just discovered on the iPhone 3G. But, is this application really more like an electronic leash? Will your significant other track you? Will moms and dads track their children this year? Yes, Loopt has an extensive privacy policy that discourages/prohibits kids under 14 years old from using the service, but even one of my most 'public' friends (both online and in off-line) was actually hesitant about … Read more

Loopt was one of the first companies to strut its stuff in an onstage demo at Apple's World Wide Developer Conference in June, and Sam Altman, the CEO of the location-aware social networking app, said the iPhone version is "the best version of Loopt we've ever created."

It shows.

Thanks to an early release of iTunes 7.7 (for Mac and Windows) and the App Store, that version of Loopt is available--for free--for anyone willing to risk the unofficial firmware upgrade today or the official Friday upgrade.

I've done the former, and Loopt's … Read more

The location-based social network Loopt, just announced and demoed its native iPhone application onstage at WWDC. The application, which will be free at launch, helps you connect with and find friends around you. Using the location technology built in to the iPhone, Loopt will drop pins onto a map, showing where your friends are.

Loopt also contains other social-networking features, such as calling, texting, and sending invitations to meet up. The example used was seeing if any friends are in your area for lunch. Once you have located friends, you can send them an invitation for lunch, and if they … Read more

Friend-finding cell phone service Loopt is now available on some Verizon Wireless phones.

Loopt is a service that uses GPS (Global Positioning System) chips in phones to pinpoint a subscriber's location; then users can broadcast that location information to friends or family, who can track them on a tiny map. Subscribers can sign up for alerts to find out when other Loopt friends are near. They're also able to tag photos and send them to friends with location information attached.

The company has been offering the service on some Sprint and Boost Mobile phones for more than a … Read more