Helio, the “Hip and Trendy” MVNO, touts a really cool feature called “Buddy Beacon” that allows other Helio users to know where you are - with your permission.

The company that powers that service, uLocate, has ported the seemingly popular web application to work with the iPhone via the web.

With Buddy Beacon, iPhone users can easily share their location with friends, as well as see the locations of friends on the iPhone’s map application. [...] Buddy Beacon for iPhone provides users with essential functions and features that have made the application so popular with users of other mobile devices across virtually all North American carriers. Users are in complete control of the Buddy Beacon experience and can choose when they want to share their location.

Buddy Beacon also allows users to easily grow their buddy network by inviting new friends to join, ‘nudge’ friends to update their location and status from within the application, and more. These features combine with Buddy Beacon’s seamless integration with Facebook to provide iPhone users the ultimate friend finding experience.

Now me being Mr. Anti Social Networking the integration to social networks is nil. But I think it’s really cool now that anyone with a iPhone can log onto a simple website and it can broadcast their position so their friends can meet them easily.

Read More