Late last year I mentioned that Yahoo was coming out with it’s own location management platform. They launched it last week in private beta. At this point - it really is just that, a platform. Very few applications exist. Seth Levine was kind enough to send me an invite.

I wrote a quick application using Fire Eagle. Birdwatcher shows recent location updates on a nice pretty map (using the Yahoo Maps API, of course…).

The bummer is that I can’t get a feed of recent updates platform-wide that twitter offers, even if I’m not displaying any identifying information. So if you want your updates to be added, click the “Add yourself” link in the top right corner and the application will start showing your locations as you add them.

I see location as an upcoming feature in online interaction. As our technology usage grows more transparent and better integrated in our lives, including while mobile, where we are will play a role.

My ideal application is something that will automatically update itself on my location, and notify me if my friends are near me. From the screenshots on Fire Eagle’s site, it looks like they are planning a Facebook application that will do that. If they don’t come up with something soon I may do it myself…

I’ll eventually post up the source code for BirdWatcher, so others can see how it works + improve.

Some Overall Thoughts

  • The geocoder is pretty robust. Just like Google Maps, you can type in a lot of crap and it’ll figure it out.
  • The platform isn’t that stable yet. Was down for a while today.
  • Don’t launch a platform with a total of zero demo applications (other than a very basic walkthrough).
  • Don’t launch a platform with incomplete libraries (the PHP api had about half of the functions, and didn’t fully work).
  • Fire Eagle is touted as heavily privacy focused - in face it’s about the same as Facebook. Once you grant permission to an application, they can see and do whatever they like.

UPDATE: I encountered some issues with the API yesterday, but they are resolved now.

UPDATE 2: Yeah, they changed their API around. Thanks for telling me… NOT. What has two thumbs and is really annoyed right now? THIS GUY. The app is broken right now. Fire Eagle is taking a ride on the FailBoat.