Have you ever been somewhere interesting and later couldn’t remember exactly where it was? Perhaps you know someone who might find a particular place interesting but they don’t know where it is? Looking for ideas of interesting places to go? Or simply want to know where your friends hang out? Wouldn’t it be great if you could grab your phone and tag your current location, or other places of interest, then search from a list of locations using keywords, for example – find a nearby Cafe or Park ? Perhaps Tagggit can help.

Tagggit describes itself as “…a location-centric social network that allows members to find each other and the tags they left behind” and is the brainchild of Loughlin Spollen, who, with the help of John Fogarty, are adding a real-time dimension to social networks. The recently launched mobile feature in particular makes this a must have application for your mobile phone.

Getting Started

The first thing you need to do is head on over to the site (www.tagggit.com) and create yourself an account which is a simple process of clicking on the sign-up button, entering a few details, confirming the terms and conditions, then identifying your preferred location.At this point you may have concerns over privacy of your data, in their own words, Tagggit “… take your security very seriously. We actually take it so seriously that we leave no information behind on your computer… just like your online bank.”

Get Geo-Tagging

Once your account is created you can create tags of locations, search for locations, invite friends, plan events and even create and join communities to share your tags with.Creating a tag is simple enough, click the ‘Create a Tag’ icon on the left hand side then complete the simple three step process:

• Where is it?
  Pinpoint a location or place of interest on the map
• What is it?
  Give it some useful keywords (to search for later) and a more detailed description. You can also add a handy picture.
• Share with?
  Choose to keep it to yourself (that quiet place in the park for example), Share it with everyone or just your friends or communities you have joined.

Once we got to grips with the interface we found adding new tags painless and rather quite enjoyable as we set about cataloguing the places around us including interesting eateries, parks, places to take the kids, and just interesting places to visit. It would be nice to assign a particular icon to a place so we could see at a glance types of places around us – in the same way we can assign landmark icons to GPS applications.

Going Mobile

So you have your account, your tags and have joined a number of social communities and invited all your friends? Now what? Well, now it’s time to kick things up a gear and get the recently launched mobile version which says it “…lets you create a tag and search for tags around you. Tagggit knows where you are, so you can tag your current location or search for tags nearby. “. Now things get really useful.

There are currently mobile versions of Tagggit available for the Nokia N96, Nokia 95, Nokia 95 8GB, Nokia N85, Nokia N82, Nokia N79, Nokia N78, and the Samsung i550 (it’s currently an S60 application).Some phone versions require the installation of a number of support libraries but these are included in the download and easily installed (Nokia PIPS, OpenC libssl, and OpenC gLibrary) then the actual software can be installed – the whole thing only takes a few minutes (once downloaded I transferred the files across using Bluetooth and installed them directly from Messaging).

Once installed simply ensure you have an Internet connection then launch the application. Usefully, you can register a Tagggit account directly from the mobile device which then locates you using some technical wizardry and you can begin assigning tags to places or searching for publicly available tags.

Currently, you still need to add friends using the web site but once done your friends tags appear in the search list ,immediately giving useful information about interesting places around you. You can assign a stars rating to these tags and add your own comments for reference. The benefits of adding interactive features to the tags brings a sense of community to the system.

In Summary

The wireless positioning system itself is a joy to behold as it manages to locate you without requiring a GPS connection (though it can use one if you prefer) – it then gives your co-ordinates using Latitude and Longitude. An option is included to identify your location on a map to provide a visual cue – in future it might be useful to overlay your position directly on the map instead.

One question I imagine will crop up is “Why don’t you just create a new landmark in your GPS mapping software?” and in my mind there are a number of advantages Tagggit has over this:

• You can tag a location without your phone – just find an Internet connection and log in
• You can quickly and easily share tags with friends and the community
• If you lose your phone or upgrade it you don’t lose your tags
• Tags can have multiple keywords and photos as well as descriptions assigned to them
• You can rate tags and comment on them adding to the information provided

The developers are regularly refining things and adding new features. Loughlin recently told me one of the planned future features is a friend finder that can quickly locate your friends whilst they have Tagggit running – you may never get lost in a shopping centre again!

Tagggit is a neat solution to the problem of finding, remembering and sharing places. The added benefit of location based awareness adds a practical and useful depth to social networking.

Visit The Site

You can join Tagggit at www.tagggit.com

Read More About Tagggit

• Tagggit – Share What’s Real
• Tagggit in open beta and available for download
• Tagggit location tool launches for mobiles
• Tagggit hopes to change how city dwellers use…. – Geo: International
• Location, location, location – Geo-commerce is here and now