Buzzspotr is a new site designed to mashup social messaging systems like Twitter with a user’s location and alow them to see their social network on a map. Currently in private pre-alpha, the site is spun out of the I-Together startup who are better known for their Blog friends Facebook application which has around 20,000 users so far.
The Buzzspotr pitch is that it lets you find where your friends are hanging out and tells them where you are (you have to “buzz” your location first to do this, so you choose to opt in). Once you do this you can see who else on Twitter is nearby. As an additional benefit it is using the Trusted Places API to generate the location and information on nearby venues.
Buzzspotr is reminiscent of Dodgeball (acquired by Google and mothballed) and Plazes, but, since it currently uses Twitter and Google maps, it is really a web app, not a mobile service or a PC download, which suggests it could scale faster. It’s also not locked into Twitter and in theory could use any messaging app – like Jaiku – with an API. Hooking into Twitter’s API also means it has a ready-made audience it can benefit from. For what it’s worth, Plazes – which requires you to download a full application to your laptop so that it can tell your friends where you – or at least your IP address – are, raised €2.7m last year from Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures.
