
Moby: Share your location in real time - priley
http://mo.by
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pbiggar
I think the original title referred to how this was some group of teenagers'
first coding project. I think the mods should change it back - this shouldn't
be viewed with the same harsh eyes as many startups are.

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bvdbijl
What was the original title?

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pbiggar
I dont remember exactly, but I think it was something like "Mo.by: first
coding project by a group of teens"

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NathanKP
I personally use Path and love the "neighborhood" alerts which periodically
post to Path "Nathan is in Downtown Austin", "Nathan is in Barton Hills,
Austin", etc. This system is very elegant and seamless because it posts
directly to the social feed without any effort.

From the landing page for the app I'm unsure of how this app works, or what
purpose the shortlink serves. Why not make the app link to Facebook, Twitter
and other social networks and just post neighborhood information automatically
like Path does? (Or maybe if they have privacy concerns with the press of one
button.) This would be much simpler, easy to explain, and would doubtlessly be
well received by those whose social networking apps don't have this useful
feature of Path built in.

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kennystone
It's not simple if your friends aren't already in your social network. The
link will work for anyone you send it to.

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tomasien
I can try to extrapolate what I would use this for and what will happen when I
share the link, but I'm unsure at best.

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dmix
Interesting.

I tried to get my friends to sign up for Google Latitude but they didn't like
the idea of it broadcasting a location when not needed.

So maybe an expiring short link is a better approach.

I like it.

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arscan
I agree. I think that a very simple, single function service like this could
be useful. You know exactly what you are sharing and who you are sharing it
with.

In the past, I've been known to take a screenshot of my open maps application
(with my location shown on the map), and sms that to friends to let them know
where I am if I didn't have the address handy. This is clearly a better
solution.

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polemic
Yeah, I like the single-purpose paradigm.

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geuis
No demo video, no explanation. Why do I need yet another app for this?

html5, javascript, geolocation apis, social networking sites with client-side
sharing capabilities. These are all the things I need to build a simple
service that does what's described here. Why is this an app?

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priley
As far as I gather, these kids have been doing it as a hobby because other
apps for quickly sharing a real-time location suck. The short link makes it
ideal for sharing via SMS/Twitter, etc.

But great point, they should have a quick demo video, even if they are just a
few young hackers. That's probably coming next.

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drivebyacct2
What apps do you need? I know how to share my current location on all major
smartphone OSes without needing any apps that aren't built in.

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priley
Ok, pretend you are picking me up. Share with me a link where you are right
now... even if you are driving.

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maxmcd
iOS: Drop a pin in apple maps then click share location within the pin.

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priley
I said pretend you were driving.

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moe
You're making this too easy.

Pretend you are scuba diving with a propulsion jet, and need to share your
location urgently.

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priley
:) Love it.

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adhipg
How is this different from 'Find My Friends' by Apple[1] considering that this
is iOS only at present?

[1] - <http://www.apple.com/icloud/features/find-my-friends.html>

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priley
Try using FMF and share with me (Android user) and the HN audience here with a
link your location for an hour. I'm also hoping these kids come out with
Android soon. Moby guys.. can you promise the HN audience an Android version
soon?

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tchen
The android app is currently being developed. Stay tuned!

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mike-cardwell
I don't want to broadcast my location constantly. But I would like the ability
to grant permission to some of my friends and family to be able to look up my
location when they need it. I'd also like a log and a notification when they
look it up, so I know I'm not being stalked, and so they actually put thought
into deciding whether or not it's appropriate to look up my location before
doing so.

I imagine an app which doesn't send my location to a third party service on an
interval. When somebody wants to look up my location, the app on their phone
sends a request to some third party service over the Internet, which then
pushes a request for my location to my phone. The first time the request comes
in from a particular user, it asks me if I'd like to grant them this privilege
permanently, temporarily, or to block it. If I grant it, then I don't need to
approve future lookups but I am alerted to them happening.

[edit] The requests could also be of the style: "Let me know when you arrive
at location x", instead of just "Let me know where you are now". Would be
handy for meeting up at places on nights out.

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shuw
It's a great hobby project, but as a product it is late to the market.

<http://www.glympse.com/what_is_glympse> has had a product out for several
years now.

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antirez
I never understand arguments like this. There as Orkut before Facebook, Loopt
before Latitude, Yahoo before Google, and Digg before Reddit.

You can copy stuff and make them better, and this better can be even just
simpler, or with better community, or other odd declinations of "better" that
are enough to win in the market.

EDIT: and in case there is already something in the marke that is yet not
famous, you can almost ignore it at all unless this is an hint about the fact
that the app may be not useful (more likely it is bad execution, bad
marketing, ...)

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skadamat
Also, Glympse has some important relevant patents they should be careful not
to tip-toe about

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priley
Glympse was founded by dinosaurs.. retired Microsoft guys. I'd put my money on
three talented teens with a better UX in their first version every day of the
week. Keep on shipping, Moby team!

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alpb
It should implement a "Launch in Maps app" feature for Android and iOS on web
interface. This will help users to get directions and make this 2x useful.

~~~
priley
Great suggestion! This is why the HN community is so valuable for young
developers like these guys.

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spion
Checkout <http://0.mk/maps> \- True, its non-realtime but

\- it has directions for the link recipient. Voice directions. (ok, the voice
is basic but sufficient)

\- you can also draw and tag other stuff on the map - if you want.

\- its fully HTML5-based. Works on desktop, iOS, Android.

\- works without a backend server (bit.ly for URLs, map quest open
directions). You can host your own easily. Infact this one is hosted on github
pages.

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pilsetnieks
I know I'm going off on a tangent but I'd be weary on putting anything on a
Belarus domain name. If you're not selling to or dealing with Belorussians
directly, you're most likely not affected by it but a country that can do this
– <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16407235> – should be treated with
caution.

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williamjackson
This looks a lot like Glympse [ <http://glympse.com/> ] to me.

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priley
Agreed, but way easier and done without >$10M of funding like Glympse. Try it.
Just like how Instagram stripped down other apps and made a better experience,
I think the short mo.by links make sharing location easier.

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savrajsingh
Here's Aaron Iba's version of the same concept (his app is called Spacetime):
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/space-
time/id508723489?mt=8&...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/space-
time/id508723489?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4)

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priley
Yes, very cool, except as far as it seems, it does not enable moving tracking
(driving) and is instead stagnant like others. Also, no shortened link.

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tomasien
Some landing page optimization to explain the product would be really helpful:
since this is a mobile app, you want to give people a good idea of what
they're getting into before they go to their phones, find it, and download it.

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jeffmoby
We totally agree. We wanted the HN audience to get access to this first and
then improve the explanation soon after for general users. Thank you!

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joren
Like the idea and liking the app. Solves some of my issues I'm having with
find my friends. Would love to see some kind of location requests and settings
on how often my location is updated. I'm keeping an eye on this app.

~~~
priley
Great point. I can how it may evolve there.

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pwysinski
Thanks for all the support and suggestions. This is just something we coded in
a little over a month a will be iterating quickly. And, yes, an android
version and awesome demo video for the splash page are in the works.

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benjlang
Very nice. I recommend checking out the Whatsapp share location feature, they
did a great job also.

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ErikHuisman
Mobypicture would love that domain..

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RossM
I was initially confused by this - it would have been a pretty big pivot for a
picture-sharing startup.

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jcfrei
classic problem and a good project to do some side programming (I think these
guys executed nicely). my own variant is a slightly less polished version
running in the browser: <http://geoteo.net/>

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PolandKid
Immediately thought of mobynow/mobypicture...

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dorfsmay
How is that different than glympse?

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borplk
the domain is gold

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patrickhop
go bears!

