That’s what Loopt founder, Sam Ashton did at the huge Consumer Electronics Show. How? Like his contacts he used Loopt to make his whereabouts known. Find friends out shopping on a nearby street or out dining at a restaurant in the same neighborhood.
Willing to lose locational privacy to find selected friends or colleagues? Increasingly people are –and this may be somewhat age-related. Brave ones like Ben Hoffman, are using it to find a date. Younger people may be more comfortable with such location-based sensing “convenience.”
(How much latitude do you want to give your friends? What if some acquaintances find they’ve been left out?) Swarming to meet spontaneously or meeting up at the last minute is more the rage. And, as neuroscientists have discovered in observing modern taxi drivers, repeated use of GPS map devices is re-wiring our brains. Adding “social location-aware” apps to a phone will expand those brain changes in literally how we see and respond to what is around us. Who knows? You might meet up to go photowalking together.
