I’m glad to share with you a few very cool, handy, and best of all, free apps for you iPhone users (some of these apps may be available for others mobile platforms so search if interested). The following are 5 cool, free Social Location-aware apps that I highly suggest and best of all, they all connect with your Twitter and/or facebook as well!
Flook (@Flook & @ambientwit) – Flook is a fun, custom photo card creation tool. Simply create an account, select a theme (color), add a custom headline and message, embed a photo (capture or select from gallery) . When finished upload the photo to their service for storage in your account and a message is sent to your Twitter to notify your friends. The app is location-aware and will geotag your photo based on your location/and/or a little help from you by selecting a place to locate the image. Search iTunes for Flook or see some of my Flooks HERE
A Flook postcard
Everlater (@EverLater) – This cool apps comes from a Colorado start-up (Boulder I believe) and provides users with a very handy travel journal tool. The app enables users to document a trip with notes and images, then stores details online for sharing with colleagues. The app provides facebook connect and in my mind, provides the added usability that Dopplr should have incorporated to make it even more social and fun! This app rocks! http://www.everlater.com/ or see a sample journal entry I created at http://www.everlater.com/glennt/fort-collins. They also provide a cool widget tool as well
EverLater on iPhone
Gowalla (@Gowalla) is another location sharing tool that iPhone users may enjoy. Simply call up the app and it detects where you are and what’s nearby. Select or create a POI and check-in (similar to brightkite or foursquare). this sends a Tweet (or facebook update) and notifies your colleagues where your are, what your doing and serves up a nice map (gmaps) . Similar to foursquare, the service offers rewards for multiple check-ins! I just received a Festive Americano for checking into my local coffee shop! Setting it apart from other apps, gowalla users can create and share trips, like a guided tour of a zoo or ?? http://gowalla.com/
Gowalla on iPhone
WorldSurfer (GeoVector) – This app from GeoVector is a clever, mobile, local search utility providing users with fast, simple access to local search results from popular search tools like Google, Bing, WikiPedia, and others. The app delivers directional search results to users, for example, searching for coffee will return something like Starbucks NW 2.3 miles etc… clicking the entry enables the user to retrieve address, weblink, ph number, and directions/map. See http://www.geovector.com/
WorldSurfer on iPhone
MapZen (@Cloudmade)- This amazing app from CloudMade enables anyone with an iPhone to take part in an OpenStreet Mapping party! The tool provides access to a users’ OSM account, enabling them to collect and store data updates for Open Street Map… awesome!! The app also connects via facebook and Twitter enabling data collectors to share updates with friends. See http://mapzen.cloudmade.com/
Have you developed a cool, social-location mobile application? Please tell us about it
See Also the following articles for more cool, social, mobile LBS apps: