UK website upingme.com (pronounced: you ping me, has launched a free service which broadcasts mobile phone users exact locations anywhere in the world by SMS. In what the company claims is a world first, the service called UAT – delivers a mobile phones exact location, as opposed to a general position triangulated from cellphone towers.The company has timed the launch to co-incide with the Christmas party season.
The UAT service is free and accessed when a upingme subscriber texts his or her location (e.g. U @ Bar Italia Soho London W1) to 41793816010. Upingme.com then records the exact location of the mobile that sent the text, and broadcasts it via a news feed to any mobile phone user subscribing to it.
With no limit on numbers, UAT users can subscribe to each friends location feed by sending U @ chum (e.g. U @ chum00447762 123etc56) or (e.g. U @ chum smithy) to 41793816010.
This means they will all receive a text each time their friend notifies UAT of a change of location.
Users can also make queries via the www.upingme.com website to find out where there friends are. The location information is then displayed on a Google Map via a web browser on their computer.
The Christmas party tracking service is a fun, yet important, device to illustrate the vast power of the new UAT service, says upingme.coms Akin Fernandez. Were now actively seeking partners to help us push on with the development of the UAT technology and explore new opportunities. We believe this service will be huge It is simple, social with the kind of features that SMS is made for. It has the potential to dovetail perfectly with social networking websites. And retailers, for example, will be able to use UAT to discover who is near their shop and text them with exclusive offers.”
The UAT service is free to mobile phone users, with no charges made beyond the text providers normal charge for each text.