Place-specific buddy list services

摘要

An information service provides search and notifications to inform when certain people (e.g., friends, family, business contacts, etc.) are nearby so as to facilitate communications with those people. Users may define lists of people whose locations may be tracked by positioning equipment based on personal communications/computing devices carried by the people. The information service processes this people and place data to identify those of the listed people that are in the user's vicinity, and provide notifications and user-initiated search results informing the user such as via the user's personal communications/computing device.

主权项

1. A method for providing a location information service, the method comprising:
receiving, from a first mobile computing device, one or more reports of a location of the first mobile computing device;
determining, based at least in part on the one or more reports of the location of the first mobile computing device, one or more places near the location of the first mobile computing device;showing on a visual display the one or more places near the location of the first mobile device to the first mobile computing device; andupon a selection of one of the one or more places near the location of the first mobile computing device, providing a prompt to share the selection to a second mobile computing device.