Keep your friends at your fingertips, with a cellphone
By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff | April 14, 2008 The Boston Globe
When Tim Collins of Natick wants to know where his friends are and what they are doing, all he has to do is glance at his phone.
Collins and a handful of his friends use Buddy Beacon, a friend-finding service for mobile phones that allows them to keep tabs on one another throughout the day.
Collins said he joined for the entertainment value, but suspects the service may actually be useful.
"I have visions that I'll be stuck in an airport and pull it up, and notice a friend is also stuck" a few gates away, Collins said.
The service could also provide a simple way to keep tabs on his daughter, if she will update her location from time to time.
"When I just want to talk to my daughter, she finds it embarrassing - but I find she actually will respond to text messages very quickly," he said.
As people of all ages have become comfortable with keeping tabs on friends through online social networks that include minute-by-minute status updates, the major wireless carriers are beginning to take the types of interactions that have become common online into the real world, using the phone.
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