“Where you at?” track your friends with Whereboutz Facebook application

Want to know where your friends are and what they are doing? Want to share your “where abouts” with your friends? Want to track your friend’s “where abouts”? Imagine having map with “pins” that represent your friend’s current location and what they’re doing. Whereboutz is a free Facebook application that lets users share their location and what they are doing with friends. Also, see their location and what they are doing on an interactive Google map. so, you can contact them for lunch, a drink or just stay up to date with their activity.

December 13, 2007, by itsnearme

The Whereboutz application enables Facebook users to update their current location directly from their profile page or mobile phone. A user can also receive text alerts when friends update their locations and they can “nudge” (a request to update their location) friends when they want to know where they are.

The way that Whereboutz works is through an interactive Google map that plots users locations based on update they have posted. Location entry is done by address (or name) or by double clicking on the map. Whereboutz is able to post locations anywhere in the world, although it is problematic with non-English speaking countries (Japan, China, Israel). Location can also be updated via a mobile phone by downloading the Whereboutz application.

The interactive map displays the users friends (who also downloaded Whereboutz to their Facebook or mobile phone) location and lets the user search for them and track their activity, the option "Find Friends Close to Me" allows the user to see only friends that are 1 to 50 miles from his current location. Users can also choose to receive text messages to their mobile phone when their friends update their locations.

Whereboutz also has a “poke” equivalent feature called “Nudge”. When a user nudges someone they receive a text message to their mobile phone or their Facebook message inbox. The message says “[friend’s name] requests that you update your location on Whereboutz”. The application has some bugs which are quite noticeable, for example, clicking on the nudge opens a compose Facebook message to a “friend” that do not exists in the users friends list (it cannot be changed to the right friend), the friend receive the “nudge” anyway but the user don’t get a confirmation message so it’s confusing.

The user’s friends on Facebook will see his location when he updates it on Facebook news-feed even if they have not added the Whereboutz application but In order to see friends on a map and be able to track their friends activity they need to add the application.

Whereboutz is different from other standalone location based service (LBS) in that it integrates into Facebook Community, rather than trying to create its own community base (and requiring users to register for an additional service and inviting their friends from scratch…).

All in all, this application is simple and easy to use, but falls short of being a full fledged location based social community service because it requires continuous and manual updates. A location update does not change or expire, even after several days. If a user has many friends this can really clutter the map. Ideally, the map should show only the last location of a friend and give the option of viewing his or her location history. Additionally, users may be annoyed having to constantly update their locations. Maybe in the future it will be able t track locations automatically,

If you like the idea of seeing your friend’s whereboutz, tracking their activity and letting them track yours (“Twitter” like behavior), you should try this application - it’s cool.

  How to use this service

Facebook:

• search for “whereboutz” in the Facebook search field (left side of the screen)
• add the Whereboutz application
• accept and follow the steps
• the application will load and you will see your friends who already added Whereboutz on an interactive Google map
• if you want to receive text message updates, verify your phone in the settings tab

Mobile Phone (more advanced users)

*requires a data-capable phone with web browser
*this requires a data plan otherwise there may be usage charges

• open the web browser on your phone and go to m.whereboutz.com
• download and install Whereboutz
• verify your phone number through whereboutz.com