Loopt Checks-in On Nearby Alerts
Loopt is arguably one of the top five location-based services on the mobile market these days. Today, the company announced on their blog that the service will now feature friend alert updates.
The feature, according to the company, will help users clear out the check-in clutter:
Alerts aren’t new to location-based services, but ultra-relevant alerts are. Loopt Friend Alerts sidestep the deluge of updates, and just ping you when your friend is within one mile — when an ad-hoc meetup is possible. This sort of relevance is something location service users have been craving: the convenience of meeting up with friends, with the ability to skip notifications when friends are at the dentist two thousand miles away.To get Friend Alerts, both you and your contacts have to activate background location sharing and Friend Alerts under the settings of the Loopt app.
Friend Alerts work on iPhones running iOS4 in the background; on iOS3 when Loopt is in the foreground; and they always works on Android and Blackberry, which can also multitask.
This is an interesting feature that other location-based services might latch on to. What do you think?
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