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Fire Eagle, taking location to new heights

Another social opportunity, this time through Yahoo!. It's amazing to me how the Web is transforming everything we do, how we organize, make friends, find places to eat.
This site integrates with other location dependent social networking sites to broadcast your location to the world. I thought it was an interesting concept for our students or adults to reach each other on a personal level and "see" where they all are. It's kind of like the dot on the map concept but taken to a whole new level.
Take a look at their Application Gallery for other cool sites. I thought it could also be used for conference attendance or trips to keep people updated of where you are and what you're doing throught the social networking blog. Check out their blog for a video presentation of the tool.

Comments

Komarey said…
I was trying to find the best application to use and found "outside.in". Its a really great site for checking out the latest buzz around town. It tracks the news and events for the zip code you provide. Others in the area are allowed to contribute and give their blogs. This is definitely a way for communities to keep in touch with the latest events in their area not just through the newspaper, but through contributions from community members too. Thanks for sharing Christy!
Clinton said…
On the glance this really looks like a cool way to get personlized information, but I would be cautious as this is just more personal information that we are giving away (for free I might add). Fire Eagle actual stores your coordinates, which means possbilities of hacking and using that info for illegal purposes. I think in the future Fire Eagle will pay users according to the level of information they are willing to share as each level has a risk associated to it.
Anonymous said…
Hey Christy, this was pretty cool. If I wasn't on the computer all day, I might want to play around on it at night. :) I think I have a better idea of what social networking sites can do. I saw a few cool applications. I thought about doing the "map my tracks" app. Where it shows you where I am along my sporting routes, for channel, of course. I think I really could have used Lightpole last month in Sacramento to look for places to eat & things to see. :) And, I found Dipity to be an interesting way to find news happenings. Did you know that there are plans for the internet to end as we know it in 2012? I'm serious. Like Clinton, the thing I don't like is that every application asks you to create an account & sign in, as if I don't have enought made-up passwords out there that I can never remember! I only signed into Fire Eagle because I have a yahoo account. I didn't get into detail with the others. Overall...pretty neat, if had more free time I might actually get into it but, I still like the real world.
Dorothy said…
Definitely an interesting social opportunity site. Mahalo e Christy for sharing. I was amazed at the numer of applications that were available to track one's location. Definitely brings connecting individuals virtually to another level. Similar to others, I also didn't like the part where I needed to create a separate account for each application I was interested in utilizing. I could see how this would definitely draw in the millenial generation of computer users. From an adult's perspective, I was also thinking about safety concerns, especially with some of the things we've been hearing in the news about teenagers being solicited/targeted through Web applications.
Kelly D. said…
Mahalo for sharing Christy! I know we've always looked at the mapping concept for A`o Makua as a way for students to "see" where their classmates live and also as a way for us to show where our participants are coming from. I wondered about the security issues, too. I did go to the Dipity site and I saw lots of applications for teaching/learning (again, what a nerd - I need to get out more like Kel so I can have actual experiences in my own life to use these tools with :) Anyways, the Dipity tool allows you to create, or a student to create, interative timelines with pictures, video, or audio. We've discussed many times how great it would be to have a Hawaiian History timeline that's interactive or even an interactive one on Pauahi's life. I'm also thinking it could be an awesome way to show your mo`oküauhau or a way to share family mo`olelo in the context of what else was happening at that time. I think especially for historical content, where the sequence of events are important, this would be a really effective teaching tool that appeals to various learning styles.
Kelly

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