Where are my friends?

German developer Mobiloco, an Ericsson Mobility World business partner, recently launched a location-based service called Buddy Alert, which easily locates your friends. It could be handy if you are downtown and feel like some company over a coffee.

Monday, November 29, 2004

The Buddy Alert application signals via a mobile phone if friends are nearby. Up to four friends can be found by sending a single text message to a short code with the keyword "where", followed by the name of your friend or the name of the group of friends.

Benjamin Tange

Benjamin Tange, founder and managing director at Mobiloco, says Buddy Alert has set itself apart from other, similar applications on the market. "Our applications work between several German operators and not just within one network as others do," Tange says. "Currently, our service works with Vodafone, E-plus and O2. Buddy Alert costs EUR 3.99 per month. For that amount of money, the user gets to make five single requests and five group requests. In a recent television show for young people, the program demonstrated Buddy Alert and let the audience vote on the application. Although 60 percent thought the application was cool, 20 percent of them found it a bit too expensive. "A person can group his or her friends and name each group, for example classmates or neighborhood friends, and with a single group request they can locate all the friends in that group," Tange says. He believes that general location-based services soon will be a part of people's daily life, particularly information-based services. "Location-based information services will reach a new target group for mobile marketing. Young people from 12 to 28 years of age mostly use wallpapers and ring tones whereas older people are more interested in knowing the location of things, like the closest gas station, bank or even their favourite brand. Therefore, we introduced Mobiloco Finder to brands and retailers." Read more about Mobiloco. By Karin Hanso