What is Pingster? It is a super simple app that puts you on a map. You can use this to coordinate a rendezvous with one person or a group. It takes no setup and is temporary. Great for dynamic or mixed groups of friends and strangers. It’s also fun to “beam down” to the planet and see what some person somewhere is seeing. A safe peek into another person’s world. Cool for travel exploration.
How long does a ping last? If you press the big button once, you are pinging for 15 minutes only. If you forget about it, the ping will simply expire. You never have to worry that you might be beaming your location information to folks without your explicit knowledge. If you press the ping button again, it adds 15 minutes to your time. You can therefore set up a ping easily to last 15, 30, 60 minutes or longer. The “Cancel” button will kill any ping instantly.
What is the ping actually showing? When you ping your dynamic location is displayed. This means that as you move, so does the black circle that represents you. We sample your location every 20 seconds, so it tracks very well if you’re walking, and adequately if you’re driving. The limitations of the tracking are in the GPS – sometimes it can show a point 30 feet from your real location, sometimes it’s blocks away. Indoors works less well than outdoors; typical of your smartphone GPS. We find the accuracy appropriate, and in some ways advantageous when sharing in public.
What is that “Magic Eye” on the flyout? The Eye will instantly take you from a global map view to a street view from the person’s perspective. Not every location on earth has a Google Street View available, but we’ve found that many do, in particular where folks ping. If none is available it simply won’t work.
Is there a quick way to zoom in or out? Yes! The two buttons on the top right of the map are for “centering” the map on you, or zooming all the way out to the global view. This effectively pops you all the way IN or OUT on the map in one touch.
What is a “Pingster Alias”? We have made privacy as simple as possible, so when you ping and show up on a map, it is always only as an anonymous alias that you select. If people don’t know your alias, then they won’t know its you. You can also change your alias as frequently as you’d like under the SETTINGS tab. It creates a simple and practical form of privacy. You might have one alias you share with workfriends, and a separate one for your family. Change as often as you like. No limits.
How do I zoom in to someone else? On the Pingster flyout there is an arrow that opens a small detail page on that person. Right now there is little here but a button to see their Map View or Street View. The map view performs just like the Center button, but on someone else – it will zoom you down to the neighborhood.
Can I message someone through the app? Right now, only in public. To post a note that others can see, the best way is to zoom down to a person, go to the WALL, and post a note (+ button on the top). Notes only last as long as you’re pinging, so if you end your session, the notes disappear. Private (person to person) messaging isn’t implemented. Neither is notification that posts are occurring.
Now, if you’re looking at the entire globe, or a large map region, the note will be pinned to the CENTER of the map – which could be in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. This means that someone zoomed in close would not see that note, but someone looking at the entire globe would. If a note is within the map bounds, it will be visible.
What does Pingster do with my location data? Nothing. When a ping ends, your location data (where you were and when) is deleted from the system. We do not store location information of this kind. So unlike virtually all other location based systems – from Foursquare to Facebook to Glympse – we don’t keep this information. Location data is sensitive and we believe you should be able to use it without giving it up.
What is mapOmatic? When you use Pingster, the pings are superimposed on a blank Google map. MapOmatic is a separate location app that easily manages ALL your location-oriented data passively and keeps it on a map for your use. It will automatically display Foursquare, Facebook, Calendar, Contact, and even web bookmark information. This gives your maps context – particularly when you’re getting directions or doing a search. A blank map is often not as good as YOUR map.
If you log into MapOmatic with the same login info as Pingster, your background map will include pins of your personal points of interest, even though the applications themselves are separate. We store your mapOmatic information in a private data vault for you, in the cloud, so your location data is safe but also accessible on phone or pad or web.
How do you guys make money? We don’t (snicker). No seriously, we don’t. We are working on appropriate monetization, but our first goal was to make a wicked simple location app that was both fun and useful. If people use it in quantity, we’ll implement ways to make money. What we CAN say is that it won’t involve selling your location data and profile. We don’t keep that. If we create a popular application, there are ample ways to monetize that will be beneficial to users and keep our business growing.
