On Wednesday evening over a glass of wine on the patio of Chateau Marmont, I got to know Loopt, a Silicon Valley startup whose social mapping tool allows friends to find one another using their GPS-equipped cellphones.
Loopt, which was founded by a Stanford University computer science major, is currently available on Boost Mobile and Sprint Nextel. Brian Knapp, the firm's vice president, said the application provides a novel answer to two popular questions: (1) "Where are you?" (2) "What are you doing?" The product, as described in its tagline, wants to be "your social compass."
Rachelle Chong, a former FCC commissioner who is now on the California Public Utilities Commission is part of the Loopt community. Chong, a self-described technology junkie, seemed intrigued by the tracking tool. Knapp, who is also the firm's chief privacy officer, prefers to call the offering "location sharing."
I’m a Sprint customer and Knapp sent me an invitation to try out the service as well. I'm not sure yet whether I'll opt-in. My location patterns would look something like this: "Office -> Capitol Hill -> Office -> Capitol Hill -> Office -> Capitol Hill -> Office." Not very interesting.
I would love to get members of Congress in on the game. That would be a lot easier than stalking them in hallways and in between hearings.
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