Find-your-friends "upingme" service launches

Subscribe to your mates' location-based news feeds via SMS

18 December 2007 9:49 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

A new free service which broadcasts mobile phone users' exact locations anywhere in the world by SMS is being launched by UK website upingme.com (as in: "you ping me").

What's described as a world first, the service delivers a mobile phone's exact location, as opposed to a general position triangulated from cell phone towers, and is aimed to be used for groups of friends finding each other on nights out.

The 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.

There's no limit on numbers, and users can subscribe to each friend's "location feed" too which means they will all receive a text each time their friend notifies the service 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 service is free to mobile phone users with no charges made beyond the charge for each text.