I am calling shenanigans on this year's SXSW fad. The microclimate that is SXSW and San Francisco often creates hype for services that, ultimately, no one is going to really care about. Foursquare and Twitter did well at SXSW in their growth phases but those companies may prove to be the exception instead of the rule. The crop this year includes several "ambient social location' apps that are likely destined for obscurity when the time comes that normal users are supposed to adopt. If you have been following the hype circles, we are talking about apps like Highlight, Glancee, Banjo and Sonar. These apps show users people that are around them using the apps and what their interests are. They use location running in the background as well as tying to social profiles like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. From a mass consumer prospective, location sharing has been the most fickle area Read More

Echoecho is a location-based mobile application that wants to make it easier for you to locate your friends, family members and colleagues in the real world. Echoecho only tries to get you to answer one straightforward question: Where are you? Unlike other location-based application, echoecho doesn't force you to constantly broadcast your own location. Instead, the application takes the opposite route. Instead of telling people where you are, you ask others where they are. You could use echoecho to check where your children are, for example, or simply to meet up with your friend without having to give a long and complicated description of where exactly they can find you. Echoecho is compatible with the iPhone (iTunes link), Android, Nokia Symbian, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile. The service offers apps and push notifications for all of these platforms. Nick Bicanic, the CEO of Purpose Wireless, the company behind echoecho, told us that Read More