A VC - Latest Comments in Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

fredwilson — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:14:25 -0000

Thanks

I'll go check that out

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Tom Coates — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:02:34 -0000

Hey - there are actually applications that do the kinds of things you're talking about and you should be able to see them in the Fire Eagle application gallery. They're of varying quality. The iPhone unfortunately can't do background processes, but you can update with one click with Sparrow, Fire Fone or Active Eagle. Sparrow also updates Twitter with your location which is quite neat.

There's a J2ME updater that works in a lot of Nokia phones in a backgrounded way. I believe it works on some Blackberrys but we need to get it working on more. Navizon works on many phones but is - to be honest - a little bit flaky.

Let me know if you need any more suggestions. They're all collected here: http://fireeagle.yahoo.net/...

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Fire Eagle Auto Updater — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:48:01 -0000

This is also a windows client that updates fire eagle.

http://www.fireeagleupdater...

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

dominik — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:58:48 -0000

Why does Zonetag not work in Australia? Is it the phone network?

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Ajay Sudan — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:32:13 -0000

Fred, I've created a mobile app that updates my location on FireEagle from my jailbroken iPhone every 15 minutes. It's been working beautifully for the last couple weeks. However, it's a shame I can't find a good place to expose my location others...where's the Facebook app or Loopt integration?

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

fredwilson — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:18:55 -0000

That sounds ideal

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Doug Klein — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:57:04 -0000

At the risk of taking the comments too deep in replies, I agree with you. However, the free version of Navizon works quite fine for this purpose.

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Apoc' — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:34:40 -0000

So basically there is no dedicated Fire Eagle's S60 client application!? I read on bunch of blogs that S60 is the only currently supported platform but I can't find anything more about?

sent from: fav.or.it

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Guest — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:15:13 -0000

I think your second point is what yahoo is expecting, too. As long as
it "appears" automatic to the people using the service, who cares how
it's being done.

But, I guess the point of this blog post, and I think it is a goog
one, is that it still hasn't been done welll yet. Navizon looks cool,
but who is going to pay for that service? Especially, when google maps
does a pretty good job of triangulating your location for free.

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Jonathan — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:54:06 -0000

Zonetag serious eats the battery if you leave it on and running ... I'm not even using GPS and it's draining my 1500mah battery a few bars just on my way to work (~1.5hr)

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Jonathan — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 10:52:57 -0000

Very cool - thanks Rupert

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Arturo Servin — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:32:09 -0000

Hi Fred,

What would be your expectations?

Mine I think are
- Automatically detecting by GPS where you are and then posting, may be updating every hour, day, etc.You must be able to up-in or up-out any time
- Manual updating by a native app in your mobile
- Manual updating by a web service (using openid for authentication, so you do not need anohter social net)
- Manual updating by SMS

-as

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Rupert Goldie — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 03:51:07 -0000

You can buy one of our SIMs, they're quite reasonable priced and give you discounted calling rates when you roam internationally :-)

But seriously, you have to be an operator or an MVNO to do location stuff with the SIM or network. There are plenty of operators who offer location based services (LBS) using the information they have in their network to triangulate your position, but these services are always tied to that operator. So they are useful for domestic services and people use it for logistics - tracking where your trucks are and so on.

We started out building communications services for international travellers and when we began thinking about additional services we could offer that made use of the infrastructure we had, we realised we had an opportunity to build something that used location information. This lead to the development of our Travel Journal, and while we were building it we ran across Fire Eagle and saw that as a great way for people to link together location aware applications.

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

dominik — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:08:13 -0000

Oh, okay, sorry. The Zonetag software is running in the background of certain Nokia models and geotags uploads to Flickr. But besides doing that it can also update the Fire Eagle location - which is what I use it for. It seems to be a bit abandoned at the moment, though.

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

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Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Jonathan — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:45:35 -0000

Unless I missed it, no one has pointed out http://m.fireeagle.com which was what Fred mentioned he was looking for to begin with. Of course doing it in the background based is more ideal and one of the things I like about Jaiku - I tag my location and it remembers. My nicknames are also shared with contacts which is handy.

I'll have to try zonetag again ... I do like the geo-tagging which is a nice bonus and I already use flickr which it directly supports

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Jonathan — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:42:47 -0000

I'd love to know more about running the app from the SIM... I'm an S60 user

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Doug Klein — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 19:07:23 -0000

Navizon is essentially the right idea if you have to do it within an app. I happen to use it quite happily on my Blackberry. I still think it should be at a system level but at least the BB allows background applications. Since Apple won't open up the background for 3rd party apps (can you say "walled garden - I knew you could :), you can't really solve the problem of having the iPhone "just doing the right thing".

The good news is that they have at least opened up the location service enough that plenty of 3rd party apps can retrieve the data and feed it back to FE, so there's a high probability that one of your normal day-to-day applications will cooperate and make it at least appear to be automatic.

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

fredwilson — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:42:09 -0000

You got this exactly right

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Rupert Goldie — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:39:09 -0000

One problem with planning tools like Tripit and Dopplr is that they depend on you following the plan. So they can update FE, but if you change your plans and don't update Tripit or Dopplr FE will have the wrong information. Of course if you're old school and print your itinerary and give it to someone you have the same problem.

A problem with manual update tools, like using twitter, is that you have to keep doing it all the time. Otherwise you're "in Boston" for days even though you were only there for a day. Facebook status has the same problem.

So you really want something that does it automatically, like a mobile app. But ideally the mobile app runs all the time and doesn't kill your battery life and doesn't use data when your roaming.

At ekit, our focus is on international travellers who may not be web or mobile savvy, so we built the location tracking into the SIM and use the network as well so the user doesn't have to worry about installing an app on their phone, or running the battery flat in a few hours, or spending hundreds of dollars on roaming data.

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Guest — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:22:08 -0000

That's a good point, and I think they are seeding it, by solving a huge problem for developers. I also think they are smart for not getting mired in any device dependent issues. To me, Fire Eagle is a really elegant solution, and I think people building apps will see that (as Doug from Light Pole mentioned above).

It sounds to me like you think Yahoo should have targeted users, and not just developers. I think that's reasonable. But, as a company, I think Yahoo's plan right now is to target developers, not users. Look at what they are doing with Search.

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

fredwilson — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:14:13 -0000

I am trying searchquest

So far, so good

m.fireeagle.com means I have to update and I think this will only work if people auto update their location

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

fredwilson — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:09:15 -0000

I wasn't sure what that was

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

fredwilson — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 16:53:12 -0000

Yes but I think you have to seed the market. Its a little cumbersome right now to get it working right

An iphone app at least would have been smart

Re: Fire Eagle - Where's The Mobile App?

Guest — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:12:34 -0000

I'm guessing they don't want to build and maintain apps for all the different handhelds and they are hoping, that by acting as a broker, the developer community will step in to fill in the gaps.