Palringo adds Location, Distance and Maps

iPhone users looking for their nearest friends need only to glance at their screens, thanks to the addition today of location functionality to Palringo’s popular rich-messaging application.

From today, users looking down their contact lists see not only the location of their Palringo contacts—typically a town name—but also how far away those contacts are from them.

In the next update (due soon), a further click will bring up a map showing the location of a contact and also the location of any other Palringo contacts within a 10km/6-mile radius.

In the same update, the location function will allow a user to display his own location on a map—highly convenient for a user visiting somewhere for the first time.

Location and proximity information adds an interesting new layer of social network connectivity. A Palringo user can choose to reveal her location to any, all or none of her contacts, changing this selection at any time. Location can be set manually by the user, or Palringo can detect location automatically, keeping it continuously updated.

“Just knowing where people are can be really useful, and knowing how far away they are is even better. The prospect of knowing where someone is before you start adds a whole new dimension to your conversation,” said Kerry Ritz, Palringo’s CEO. “It can eliminate worry and will probably mean the end of a lot of unnecessary ‘Where are you?’ calls. And soon you’ll pretty much be able to watch your friend, a few minutes late for your rendezvous, approaching on a map,” he added.

Location and proximity information complement Palringo’s rich messaging service, which already provides the option to send/receive vocal instant messages, picture messages and text-based messages. The Palringo service is designed for use on mobile phones, but versions are also available for Mac OS and other desktop environments.


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