Low maintenance social networking.
Like many social networking applications Where The Flock? by byte IDEA consulting allows you to see the location of your fellow flockers but offers one unique take on locating friends it will also inform you of their speed if they are driving…..or running really really fast while you are updating their current location.
Features and Functionality
Where The Flock? (WTF) uses Google Map to show you your own location as well as your friend’s and family’s location….If your “flock” has the application already installed. It offers the option to “add friends” and invite them to download and launch WTF. Once you have friends who are also using WTF you can invite them to be a part of your “flock” or “group of people who wish to share their location.” After you have added your contacts you can browse through them quickly to see their location and speed if they are moving when you updated the application.
Within the bookmark menu you can drop pins for your Parked car location, Home sweet home, and Office location. Also you can add a Shared bookmark which is a location that is made visible to your friends.
WTF is quick, responds well, and is very clean looking! Only problem is many social networking sites offer the same features as WTF and a bunch more! So in order for this application to be useful you would have to convince your friends and family to use this application instead of the social networking sites they currently are using.
If you cant round up a “flock” WTF can still be of benefit to you……If you loose your car in a parking lot.
So overall for functionality it has a good purpose but a desire that is probably being fulfilled for free somewhere else with more features.
What Was Pleasing…
The interface is clean and easy to navigate. It does offer the option to see your friend’s speed in kilometers when checking their current location which as far as I know is pretty unique to this application, and it responds very well and quickly.
Problems
When I did send out an invite, the person did not receive an email or any other form of communication letting them know I was trying to get them to join my flock within Where The Flock?. We tried numerous times expecting an email because that is what I had to enter into the box when “adding friends”. After multiple times we decided to download the application on his phone and then sign in and tah-dah he received an invite through the application.
So in order for your friends to join your flock you would have to manually contact them and let them know what application to download, tell them to sign in and then they should receive a friend request from you. Or you could just continue using Google Latitude.
Suggestions for Improvement
- Work out bugs
- Allow application to contact people via e-mail to let them know that the user wants them to join them on Where the Flock with a link to the application in the Appstore.
- Offer more features such as:
- Instead of dropping pins use photos from your contacts
- Offer directions to the location of your friends, their homes, shared location etc.
- Within settings allow more personalization. Name and Number = Boring. The application is listed under social networking, my iPhone has a contact book that offers more information.
