Fire Eagle Comes to Facebook and Firefox
Yahoo has just released a new application which brings their location-aware platform Fire Eagle to Facebook's social network. The new app called "Friends on Fire" lets you easily share your current location with a set of trusted friends. Fire Eagle users can also share short, Twitter-like posts with each other. These are quick updates and tips tied to your location and displayed on a map within Facebook. In addition, the Fire Eagle team has also introduced a Firefox extension that lets you update your location with just one click.
Friends on Fire
When you click the "Get Started" button in the Friends on Fire Facebook application, you're redirected to Yahoo's Fire Eagle page where you have to sign in with a Yahoo ID. If you don't already have one, then you'll need to create one here - an extra step that may be a bit off-putting for new users.
Once you've signed in, you must provide an email address for receiving important updates from Fire Eagle. You then must also specify at what intervals you want to receive an email that asks if you're still comfortable sharing your location. The choices you're given are "once per month," "once every 3 months," and "don't bother." Finally, you have to accept the terms of service and give the Facebook app access to your location.
Back in Facebook, you'll be shown the other Fire Eagle users among your friends and given the opportunity to connect with them. You can also configure additional settings like how exact the location updates are, who can see them on the map, and whether or not the posts update your wall.
Mobile Updaters
Of course, if you're out and about, you're not necessarily going to be hauling around your computer with you. Instead, you'll want to grab one of the mobile Fire Eagle updaters from Yahoo's Gallery. These apps include simple mobile updaters like Fire Fone for the iPhone as well as more robust social networking apps like Brightkite. However, even though these apps are integrated with Fire Eagle, we had some problems getting one of them to also update the Facebook Fire Eagle map. Our preferred mobile social network Brighkite, for instance, updated our Wall but the Fire Eagle map did not show our location.
According to Tom Coates, the head of the Fire Eagle project, it might take a couple of minutes for your location to show up when you use a third party application, but we've waited for 20 minutes so far and the Brightkite update never made its way to the map. Obviously, this delay could hamper the usefulness of a location-aware app - especially if you're checking in at places you're only going to be for a short while - like the local coffee shop or a restaurant where you stopped for lunch.
There are several apps in the list to try, so it looks like we'll need to check them one-by-one to see if that's a common issue, or something specifically related to Brightkite. (Share your experiences in the comments!)
Fire Eagle Updater for Firefox
The Fire Eagle Firefox add-on is much simpler to use. After installing the extension, you only need to click a button in your browser toolbar to update your location. This is useful for those scenarios when you are, in fact, toting your laptop around. It's easy to imagine college students using this on campus, traveling business executives checking in as they launch their browsers in airports and hotel rooms, or web workers checking in from their favorite Wi-Fi hotspots.
Both the add-on and the new Facebook application will help push the concept of location-awareness even further into the mainstream. Although, as we mentioned yesterday, the next step after location-aware apps may be location-aware ads. However, we're still excited to see the developments taking place in this area, especially when it comes from a standards-based platform with strong privacy controls like Yahoo's Fire Eagle.
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Looks interesting, I'll definitely try this.
Hi Sarah - I can actually see your location in the screenshot you've posted. If you've set your location to a general area (or if you've said Friends on Fire can only see your city or neighbourhood from Fire Eagle) then it won't display a pin on the map, but will display the location plaque in the bottom right hand corner. Hope that clears that up.
Of course it's on the image I posted - I manually updated Fire Eagle using the box provided in the Facebook app in order to get an image for the article that showed something.
I did so after waiting for 20+ mins for Brightkite to do it for me, but it never happened.
(And yes, I refreshed the page. I even logged out of Facebook & went back in. You can see the Bkite updates on my wall but the map only showed a message: "we don't know where you are.")
The firefox add-ons will change the world.
Apologies Sarah, I misunderstood. Feel free to contact me at my e-mail address and I'll try and troubleshoot your problem.
@Tom: I'm kind of busy with something now, but I would like to get this worked out. I prefer Brightkite & want it to work.
@Sarah - You make a great point that deserves some additional attention:
"Both the add-on and the new Facebook application will help push the concept of location-awareness even further into the mainstream"
Good call. Isn't mainstream visibility what we've been waiting for? Location-aware apps and GPS enabled mobile devices haven't yet seen the kind of visibility that Fire Eagle is about to allow (i.e. people seeing location based status updates in widgets and on blogs and pages) so we still don't really know if this service is something the mainstream really wants - putting a flood light on the technology by putting it in hyper-popular platforms like facebook will be a good test bed...if it fails there, it'll provide good insight into cultural trends. I think that location information in status updates present a cultural/privacy issue that a lot of people still aren't ready for - it's definitely where I draw the line of "over-sharing". I suppose we'll get a better idea of how the public actually fe
They couldn't think of a better name than Friends on Fire? Why would my friends be on fire?
Won't the actual manufacturers of these devices want to use their own platform, rather than Yahoo's? e.g. Apple - Google Maps and apossible Latitude link up in 10.6 The mainstream might not like it, but shouldn't they then have tried it with early adopters a bit more first? Seems the iPhone is one of the more ubiquitous devices this Location Based Service might be useful for, but not actually need Fire Eagle, as they could have their own (and provide a link to Facebook as well - see their iPhoto 09 link)
Posted by: Tom Tubbs
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March 13, 2009 11:46 AM
I can actually see your location in the screenshot you've posted
@steel pipe: As I explained in the above comments, that's because I manually posted a checkin through the FB app in order to take a decent screenshot for the article.
Google Maps and apossible Latitude ısı yalıtım link up in 10.6 The mainstream might not like it, but shouldn't they then have tried it with ısı yalıtım early adopters a bit more first? Seems the iPhone is one of the more ubiquitous devices this Location Based Service might ısı yalıtım be useful for, but not actually need Fire Eagle, as they could have their own
They couldn't think of a better name than Friends on Fire?
I can actually see your location in the screenshot you've posted