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So you're out on a Saturday night, and half your crew met up at a local bar on their side of town while you and the rest of your buddies went straight to the club. Now what? You can call each other to find out where everybody is located, or you could even text each other back and forth to get the same information. Both require a good amount of time, and effort.
And for an event like SXSW, out-of-towners (like me) spent a good portion of their time figuring out the name of the bar where they were currently located so that they could text the name of it to their friends. Wait back for a reply requesting the address, asking around for that information, and texting it back to their friends again.
Sniff hopes to remedy this problem by leveraging location-based capabilities for informing you of where your friends are. Already gaining popularity in Sweden, Sniff is making its way to the US, and to other parts of Europe. I know what you're thinking. There are already location-based services out there that help me keep tabs on all my friends. Loopt mobile even landed a deal with Verizon for similar features.
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Well, there are a couple of options that Sniff hopes will help it stand out from the crowd, starting with a Facebook application. This not only gives you access to your friends without having to input them separately into Sniff's service, but it allows you to check on friends' locations both online and via your mobile phone. The other good thing about Sniff being a Facebook app is that it allows for a higher level of privacy features so that you share your location with only those friends you've selected (both of these aspects are not limited to the Facebook app).
Additionally, Sniff works via SMS messaging on your mobile phone. That means there's no application you need to pull up in order to access the location of any of your friends. Text "sniff" along with your friend's name to the Sniff service shortcode (60506), and you'll receive a message back with their location on a map. I like the hand's off approach to Sniff, in that there's no time-consuming back and forth between friends. Other options allow for SMS updates pertaining to a friend or an event. But