Review: FootFeed
Score:
56%
FootFeed is an application for Symbian^3 phones that answers a problem that the modern geo-location ecosystem has – how to check in to more than one service with as little fussing around as possible. It works, just about, but it’s just that it feels like a 'bait and switch' on the user to build FootFeed's own network. Here's my review...
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The marketing people would say that the core value proposition of FootFeed is that it talks to a number of location networks (including Google Latitude, Foursquare and Gowalla) and when you check in just once, your location data is then federated around the other sites. The principle of check-in fatigue is instantly minimised and in theory this lets you get on with broadcasting your life as quickly as possible.
It’s a nice looking app, although all the primary colours make it feel a little bit brash to my eye. The interface is nicely neutral and doesn’t bias you to any of the social networks. Check in is a simple matter of hitting 'Places', and letting the smartphone work out its location. You’ll be presented with a list of potential places, and you can say where you are.
This is where FootFeed starts to fall down, because the locations are only those known to FootFeed, and being relatively new, it doesn’t know many places. To start with, you’ll need to add locations yourself and match these up to places in the other location networks. So you’re doing the work of populating the database for FootFeed’s system. If you can cope with this web 2.0 "transaction" then FootFeed is a promising weapon to add to your arsenal.
But for Symbian users there is a 500lb gorilla in the room: Ovi Maps. While it has had (for a few months) the ability to check in to a location with Twitter and post your location to your Facebook profile, the latest build of Ovi Maps added in FourSquare and Qype to the toggleable services you could use. Just as FootFeed builds up a database of location, so does Ovi Maps, but I'm a little bit happier handing my details to a huge company like Nokia as opposed to a random small start-up.
Personal preference, yes, but check-ins do have value in the modern world. Power users who use other systems, such as Gowalla, will look at FootFeed as one potential solution to Gowalla on Symbian, but once Ovi Maps adds Gowalla as an option (I've no knowledge that they will, but I'd expect the team to be looking at it) then l’ll have no need for FootFeed.
Brutal? Probably, but I'm not sure that "it works" is enough for the highly connected and competitive geo-location application space.
Ewan Spence, AAS
Reviewed by Ewan Spence at