Disqus
A new location-based social network named Rally Up is now available for iPhone, (yes, it checks-in like Foursquare) targeting folks who are predominantly interested in communicating and maintaining privacy. Rally Up shares your location with a select group of friends thanks to check-ins of not only where you currently are, but also where you’re headed, which can easily facilitate meetups. A built-in messaging system goes a long way to enabling all kinds of coordination. Along with the Foursquare-esque check-ins are badges for accomplishing certain goals and leaderboards for most check-ins in a particular area, but the real emphasis is on keeping things private and limited to the people actually hang out with, not the folks to whom you just want to brag about your mayorship. As you can see, you can set each friend to mate, lurk, feed, or real visibility, depending on your relationship and comfort level.
The points of interest will rely a lot on user-generated content, much like the other networks, but is plugging in to Open Street Map, which has upwards of 1.7 million spots already ripe for the picking. When adding your own, you can include comments as well as pictures to that particular spot. Given that these guys also worked on 12seconds, I would hope that they eventually add the ability to upload geotagged video clips too, but for the time being, that’s wishful thinking. Temporary POIs are also available for one-shot events or parties, which is pretty handy. Rally Up interests me because it seems to strike a nice balance between the utility and privacy of Google Latitude, and the active social networking of Foursquare. Between Yelp, Gowalla, MyTown, Foursquare, and doubtlessly others, the check-in app market is getting quickly swamped, but I hope Rally Up manages to carve out a name for itself.
For more info and a closer look, you can hit up their website; Rally Up will also be coming to the iPad soon, if you’re into that kind of thing.
– Download Rally Up for iPhone (Free) [iTunes Link]
About The Author
Simon Sage
Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.
-
Tommy
