A brand new location-aware app called echoecho promises to make it easy to share your location with people you trust. You can “echo” someone from your existing address book, and if they have the app installed, they receive a push notification and can tap the screen to respond with their current location.
“We decided, about the time Foursquare and Latitude first came out, to create an alternative for more private folk,” says Remy Kozak from PurposeWireless, the company that created echoecho. “We not only removed the requirement to join a new social network, we also streamlined the crap out of the interface.”
My wife and I downloaded the app to give it a try, after all, she frequently wonders about my ETA on my hour-long commute home from work. She hits “echo” on her phone, I see the push notification and launch the app. Once I hit “reply” — which is easy to do in traffic — she can hit “map” and see my location and distance away. (In this case, our phones are right next to each other, hence the 53 feet.)
“We made the bold assumption that most people you care about (at least enough to share precise location info) are actually in the address book already on your phone,” Kozak said. “Also, rather than creating our own texting or check-in service, we kept our API open so social game and service developers can quickly integrate our capabilities.”
