Signal to Noise

Geo-centric functionality is more and more a necessity when building social devices, applications, and mashups. The relevance of location to almost every communications transaction is undeniable, and Palringo has embraced this truth by adding location identifiers to Palringo status messages, meaning that your buddy list will now display where in the world you are at the moment.  Good stuff, even if it doesn’t warrant a full-length PR:

LONDON–Oct. 21, 2008—Palringo, one of the most popular instant messaging applications for mobile phones, has added live location information to the latest version of its application—Palringo Local.

Accurate to the suburb or even street level in a city, and to the closest named town in rural areas, Palringo users can opt to display their location alongside their status, for fun, personal, social, business or any other purpose.

Palringo Local goes live today for Microsoft® Windows Mobile® users, and will be delivered as an automatic update for existing users. Roll-out will follow for other popular mobile device operating systems—including Symbian OS™-based phones, Java™, BlackBerry® and iPhone™—completing before the end of 2008. Palringo Local for desktop/laptop editions of the Microsoft Windows® operating system also goes live from today and will be automatically updated.

Palringo enables vocal instant messaging and picture messaging, as well as text-based instant messaging. Knowing the location of contacts adds further richness to the experience and brings benefits in all sorts of scenarios. For example, it may help simply when meeting a friend, or in more sophisticated ways such as assessing whether a conversation will be cheaper to conduct via Palringo than by phone, if to call someone will clearly cause them to incur roaming charges. Palringo is extremely cost-effective to use.

Kerry Ritz, Palringo’s CEO, said: “Since the dawn of the mobile phone era, we’ve all listened into or been part of mobile phone conversations in which the two parties have asked each other where they are—or, with SMS, spent a message establishing those facts. Now, people won’t need to do that; provided someone wishes to ‘show,’ the basic instinct to ‘know,’ even if it doesn’t matter, is satisfied.

“But there are also quite practical reasons for showing your location: if you’re part of a group all meeting in one place, like a sports team; or you want to know where your delivery drivers are without investing in expensive systems. Whatever your reason to show your location, now you can,” he explained.

Anyone using Palringo Local must specifically opt in to display their location; users can opt in and out at will. Even opted in, users retain control over which contacts can see their location. Location may also be set manually.

The popular instant messaging services with which Palringo integrates are: AOL® Instant Messenger®, Google Talk™, Yahoo!® Messenger®, Gadu-Gadu, ICQ®, Jabber® and Windows Live.  People can also use Palringo to contact their friends using iChat®, Apple’s IM application.

Palringo is free to download from www.palringo.com. There are no subscriptions or other hidden charges.