Sometimes you want to show people where you are and what you are doing, not just tell them. One geo app that lets you do that with photos and videos is Pegshot, which operates both as a Website and a complementary iPhone app (iTunes link). Pegshot lets you capture a video clip or photo on your iPhone and send it out as a message via a link on Twitter or Facebook. When one of your friends clicks on the link, they are taken to a page on Pegshot where they can watch the video, or see the photo, next to a map showing where it was taken. There they can add a comment to the shot.
For example, here is a Pegshot that founder Phil Thomas DiGiulio sent me as an introduction to the service. On the page, you can see the video message, the map, and his recent stream of shots. You can also sign up for your own account and start following other users. PegShot lets you both follow other people like on Twitter and friend them like on Facebook, which requires a reciprocal two-way acknowledgement. Within the iPhone app, whenever you take a Pegshot, you have the option to share with just with your Pegshot friends, people on Twitter, Facebook, or all three services. You take the shot, title it, and say where you are (you can pick from a list of nearby locations like you can on Foursquare or add your own). It is also easy to email a Pegshot link from the app.
I expect many of the elements of Pegshot to be adopted by other geo apps. It ties together the video messages, the maps, and the stream in an elegant way. But there are some drawbacks. You cannot use your Facebook or Twitter ID to sign in or import your existing friends from those services. It only lets you broadcast out to those services. And while the iPhone app makes it easy to take a shot and upload it, it doesn’t act as a stream reader itself. So you can’t use it to check out other people’s shots once you do start to follow people. To do that you have to be on a regular computer. Those two features would be pretty simple to add in future upgrades.
As more and more mobile apps become Geo-enabled, we are going to see a lot more of this kind of Geo-stream interface mixing maps, videos, and status updates.
