Live data from Hacker News

Moby: Share your location in real time

mo.by

1–10 of 63 posts

Re: Moby: Share your location in real time

#2
Interesting.

I tried to get my friends to sign up for Google Latitude but they didn't like the idea of it broadcasting a location when not needed.

So maybe an expiring short link is a better approach.

I like it.

Re: Moby: Share your location in real time

#3
post #2

Interesting. I tried to get my friends to sign up for Google Latitude but they didn't like the idea of it broadcasting a location when not needed. So maybe an expiring short link is a better approach. I like it.

Great point. The short-link makes it sort of like Bit.ly for location and easily shared in SMS, Tweets, etc. I also like the temporal aspect that you can control how long you will be sharing the link (ex: I pick someone up at the airport, so I share my location for a few hours to that person).

Re: Moby: Share your location in real time

#4
post #3
post #2

Interesting. I tried to get my friends to sign up for Google Latitude but they didn't like the idea of it broadcasting a location when not needed. So maybe an expiring short link is a better approach. I like it.

Great point. The short-link makes it sort of like Bit.ly for location and easily shared in SMS, Tweets, etc. I also like the temporal aspect that you can control how long you will be sharing the link (ex: I pick someone up at the airport, so I share my location for a few hours to that person).

[deleted]

Re: Moby: Share your location in real time

#5
I personally use Path and love the "neighborhood" alerts which periodically post to Path "Nathan is in Downtown Austin", "Nathan is in Barton Hills, Austin", etc. This system is very elegant and seamless because it posts directly to the social feed without any effort.

From the landing page for the app I'm unsure of how this app works, or what purpose the shortlink serves. Why not make the app link to Facebook, Twitter and other social networks and just post neighborhood information automatically like Path does? (Or maybe if they have privacy concerns with the press of one button.) This would be much simpler, easy to explain, and would doubtlessly be well received by those whose social networking apps don't have this useful feature of Path built in.

Re: Moby: Share your location in real time

#6
post #5

I personally use Path and love the "neighborhood" alerts which periodically post to Path "Nathan is in Downtown Austin", "Nathan is in Barton Hills, Austin", etc. This system is very elegant and seamless because it posts directly to the social feed without any effort. From the landing page for the app I'm unsure of how this app works, or what purpose the shortlink serves. Why not make the app link to Facebook, Twitte…

You are absolutely right. This is just our first version and we these are great tips. Thank you for your suggestions and we will improve in the next version.

We wanted to get this out early so we can learn from all of you.

Re: Moby: Share your location in real time

#8
post #7

Some landing page optimization to explain the product would be really helpful: since this is a mobile app, you want to give people a good idea of what they're getting into before they go to their phones, find it, and download it.

We totally agree. We wanted the HN audience to get access to this first and then improve the explanation soon after for general users. Thank you!

Re: Moby: Share your location in real time

#9
post #5

I personally use Path and love the "neighborhood" alerts which periodically post to Path "Nathan is in Downtown Austin", "Nathan is in Barton Hills, Austin", etc. This system is very elegant and seamless because it posts directly to the social feed without any effort. From the landing page for the app I'm unsure of how this app works, or what purpose the shortlink serves. Why not make the app link to Facebook, Twitte…

It's not simple if your friends aren't already in your social network. The link will work for anyone you send it to.

Re: Moby: Share your location in real time

#10
post #7

Some landing page optimization to explain the product would be really helpful: since this is a mobile app, you want to give people a good idea of what they're getting into before they go to their phones, find it, and download it.

Did you miss the screenshot? It seems pretty self explanatory to me...
Post reply on HN