Swirl Connect

Yahoo! released "Checkmates" last week, and I haven’t seen it get too much press as of yet. It’s actually a pretty slick application, with an ingenious navigation system.

It’s a mapping application, but its focus is on showing you where your friends are on the map, or more specifically, where your friends are, are coming from, or are going to. Install the application, sign in with your Flickr account, and you’re ready to go. Find your position on the map, and add a pushpin. All of your friends will be able to see your pushpin on their handsets.

We look at this as more validation for where we’re headed with Swirl. Swirl is about making connections, and fitting into your mobile lifestyle. As a glimpse into what we’re working on with Swirl, Yahoo! Checkmates is very similar in concept to a subset of our product. Picture the functionality of Checkmates, without the bandwidth-hogging mapping graphics, and add to it messaging capabilities (free, as in not via your carrier), group messaging and conversations, and summary presence information. That’s part of our "regional" connection service, but most of our product is focused on "local" connections.

Yahoo! Checkmates is available here

Tags: Swirl, ISV, mobile, Mobile 2.0, J2ME, mobile applications, Yahoo, Checkmates, mapping

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