I blogged about Fire Eagle last week. Remember? The service that stores and brokers your location and provides a host of APIs for anyone wanting to integrate location data into their web apps.
That post got 0 comments, which was a bit surprising. I thought Eddie or Dan or Matt would be geeked to check out Fire Eagle, ideally coupling it with Twitter for geo-location at OpenWorld. After all, ad hoc meetups like the one Rich and I had with Lou Springer last year would be way easier if you could our locations see on a map (like from Fireball) or by tweeting command to get our locations (like Firebot).
Maybe it’s because Fire Eagle is still in closed beta.
I contacted the Fire Eagle team, and Jeannie was nice enough to give me 20 invites. So, if you want one, leave a comment, hit me up on Twitter, whatever. Get ’em while they last.
I found another sweet use for Fire Eagle in social network du jour, Brightkite. Brightkite uses your location, plus your friends to facilitate real life social interaction. I know, hard to imagine. It sports a sweet mobile integration and has some nice bells and whistles, like Twitter integration for contacts and location updates.
Plus, they have a Fire Eagle app that can read/write your location from/to Fire Eagle. It’s pretty well hidden though; you’ll have to dig to find it. Psst, in Account Settings, on the Sharing tab, below the fold. Or see here, way down at the end of the post.
The combination of networks and location is solid. You have all these “friends” online, and some of them you might actually want to meet. Then again, you might not want to meet the people who throw sheep at you in Facebook.
It’s even more applicable to business contacts and colleagues. Say you’re traveling and need to find a meeting or the local Oracle office. Or your pals Rich and Raimonds are coming to Portland for RailsConf. Be easier to find them if they told you where they are.
Anyway, I think it adds a useful dimension to your network. Problem is it’s not that easy to figure out how Fire Eagle updates these apps. I’m still trying to get it right. If anyone knows how Fire Eagle works in detail, let me know; I have questions.
Or hit me up for a Fire Eagle invite and help me test. Jeannie tells me they may be in public beta before OpenWorld, but I can’t wait that long to get started.
I can haz invite…plez.
Sorry I missed the post last week somehow. Sounds cool, I'll give it a go if you've got invites left.
will dm one to each of you . . . 18 to go
@Jake you might have missed @ppedrazzi tweeted his request to you before me
Hey, what about me? I'd appreciate a fireeagle and a Brightkite invite if can givz. Thx.
Right you are, I did miss Paul's tweet. 17 to go now.
Worth noting that Firebot is down now, which is a bummer. I've tweeted at the dude who works on it, in his spare time I assume 🙂
@Eddie: Will send one of each. May need you (and Rich) to help propagate Brightkite invites, as I only have 2 moar 🙁 Or just ask Twitter, like I did.
I have 3
I'd be sure interested in an invite.
@talboito: On its way, only 15 remain now.
One for me too.
TIA 🙂
This one too. please 🙂
Yes, posting a comment for an invite.
I'd love one – very curious about this service. Hoping that something can be done between FireEagle and my treo for location sensing, too!
I've got a couple brightkite invites left too if anyone needs them. Just email or tweet me.
I'd love a fire eagle invite please!!! Patrick Lord, MobiLuck
@shishir: Sent you one via dm.
@S Venkataramanan/Paul/Patrick: Sending via email.
I'd love a Fire Eagle invite if you have any left. I just signed up for BrightKite, and I want to play with the interaction between them.
On its way by email, don't expect much from the Brighkite-FE app. I've yet to get it working at all. Definitely let me know if you have any success.
Hmm. I can push to FE from BK, but BK doesn't seem to pull from FE (which is actually the direction I'd like best). I did find a sweet app for my BlackBerry called FindMe, which does automatic location updates through a FaceBook app. I also installed another BlackBerry app called LightPole beta, which seems pretty neat. No automation, but can find cool stuff near me.
Yeah, I haven't had a lot of success with either push or pull, but I haven't really spent much time testing. Kind of just hoping it will work out when they go public beta.
So the Web 2.0 Expo used it this year. I thought it was kind of lame. Do you think that it will work better at OOW?
Yeah, Fireball did a private beta. The Fire Eagle team said they may be public by then, which should drive app development. Right now, nothing seems to be working. Assuming Firebot comes back or there's another Twitter-based app, I think that would useful. Would make it way easier to do ad hoc meetups.
Can you please give a invite key. Fire eagle has another problem it does not have Java client.
Hi, the invites I had are long gone. Do you really need a Java API? There are six other options, which is more than you'll get from a lot of consumer Web 2.0 sites.