Seeing Forests

Yahoo’s FireEagle (what’s up with these names?), as Greg put it in FireEagle Success Depends on Scale, is like an OpenID for Location.  I like that turn of phrase and think it’s in the right ballpark.  Marshall Kirkpatrick at Read/Write Web in Location Aware: Smart Rollout for Yahoo! Fire Eagle talks to this point as he credits Yahoo with using open standards such as oAuth for API authentication.  Using open standards does not an open standard make but it’s in the right direction.  Greg goes on to state that he thinks that the system will only be successful if a lot of people sign-on to use it first then developers will jump on it.  I think it’s really going to be the other way around.  Merely updating your location manually - “Twitter for Location” - as Michael A puts it in Yahoo’s “Twitter for Location” Goes into Private Beta with Near Zero Functionality is really not all that compelling in and by itself, especially coupled with privacy concerns (which Yahoo! seems to be dealing with quite well, however).  No, what’s really going to drive usage will be the developers and the applications first.  Applications like Dopplr and BrightKiteare providing reasons for people to post their physical location and that’s going to drive usage.  Yet another reason for YP companies to start providing Find Nearby APIs.  

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