Smartphone applications track location of friends

Researcher says that new mobile services offer new ways to explore city, but others warn of perils of "oversharing" information

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By Jussi Pullinen
     
      Foursquare is a mobile application that helps one find new ways to explore one’s city.
      It helps one meet up with one’s friends and allows the earning of points and badges for discovering new places, doing new things, and meeting new people.
      Jiri Kupiainen earns some points when he signs up to the real-time location-tracking site of the Foursquare service with his mobile phone at a beer restaurant in Helsinki’s district of Kaisaniemi.
     
At the same time, the programme shows in which places in various parts of the city Kupiainen’s friends are, and how many points they have earned.
      ”When I can see directly where my friends are, I do not necessarily have to phone everyone in order to ask where we could meet”, Kupiainen says.
      Jiri Kupiainen, aged 26, has visited this bar more frequently than any other Foursquare user. The service also reports this fact to all other visitors, who can then try to beat him.
     
Location-based mobile phone applications are little by little becoming more common.
      For example Foursquare turns exploring the city and observing one’s friends into an addictive game, and the more new places one visits, the better one does in the game.
      These services operate on phones equipped with satellite-positioning. Increasingly often it is also possible to add the writer’s location to the status update of online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
      As a result, an individual person can find out by phone what other people visiting a certain location have thought about it.
      Some applications are also able to search information about the sights and shops nearby.
      Kupiainen also uses several different applications which tell his friends where he is.
     
The new mobile services can offer new ways to explore the city, says Antti Oulasvirta, a senior researcher in the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology (HIIT), a joint research institution of Aalto University and the University of Helsinki.
      These applications can be used to keep track of the friends, to gather information, or for both.
      Jiri Kupiainen also adds to Foursquare tips of the best buys at those restaurants he has visited, in order that people who come to the place later can read them.
      ”If I were in a strange place, I might find such tips useful”, Kupiainen notes.
     
For the time being, these applications are enjoyments of those who are interested in technology.
      In his own firm, Kupiainen also builds Facebook and iPhone games.
      In practice, these services require a smartphone in order to operate, and the number of such users is not yet that high in Finland.
      ”Such applications and tips could be more useful in a larger city. The bars and pubs of this city are seen and explored rather quickly”, Kupiainen notes.
     
Earlier this year, a website entitled pleaserobme.com attracted a lot of attention, with its idea to reveal such users of the Internet who publicise their location so that their friends can see where they are.
      The creators of pleaserobme.com say that they wanted to highlight the fact that users of so-called location-based services are often guilty of "oversharing" information about their movements, giving away real-time data a burglar would very much like to have - namely "I am not at home right now". Hence the catchy name.
     
Providing his current location in various services, Jiri Kupiainen claims he is not afraid of such threats.
      ”My attitude to the Internet is that I make most of my information public”, he says.
     
According to Antti Oulasvirta from the HIIT, all services should be designed so that it would be as difficult as possible for outsiders to identify the user in question.
      ”However, it is difficult, as it is important for others engaged in discussions to understand who is sending what messages”, Oulasvirta notes.
     
When it is possible to establish the location of a person and his or her mobile phone, many kinds of interesting snippets of information can be loaded into the phone.
      Many smartphones have a map which can show information about the services that are available in the neighbourhood.
      For example, several Nokia models have such maps. The information of the writer’s location can be added to the data that is included in many social networks.
      For instance, some Nokia phones can be used to include in the Facebook update the location of the user.
     
Further, Google’s Latitude application shows on a map where those who have loaded the same programme are moving around.
      Pundits are also predicting a bright future for "mobile augmented reality browser" applications such as Layar and Wikitude, for use in the most sophisticated smartphones.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 8.3.2010


Links:
  Layar
  Wikitude
  Pleaserobme.com
  Follow me: An Economist article on location-based services on mobile phones
  Foursquare
  Google Latitude

JUSSI PULLINEN / Helsingin Sanomat
jussi.pullinen@hs.fi