[realrocker]

Interesting. A couple years ago I worked on something similar, GrabHalo: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grabhalo.m.... You really need to work on location tracking. Right now it pops up a dialog if GPS is not enabled. What if I don't want to give you my location upto the accuracy of few meters? Also how do you intend to solve the "Hello World" problem? You know, users checking in, saying 'Hi' and losing interest when they find out they have nothing to talk about?

[m1chael3ma]

That’s good info on the user experience side. We might be able to implement something that allows people to just select their location, but then we’d be concerned that people just fake their location.

I guess we’re doing a few things that help with the “Hello World” problem: having an adjustable radius, focusing on conversation threads that you can go back to, and we’re also working on launching at local events and working with event managers.

Would be great to some insights on what worked or didn’t work for you?

[Jemaclus]

Who cares if I fake my location? If I'm in Berlin but I say I'm in London, does that really detract from anything? I can still talk to people, right?

[ggiaco]

It could ruin the experience of having conversations with people who are actually nearby?

Proximity makes communication more relevant and Spiral makes it easy to filter your feed by distance around you.

[dam-buty]

It may depend on how you define local. For example, when i lived in Mexico, "local" news for me might have been news from my hometown in France, but GPS location would not let me see that.

Also, you might wanna consider the middle ground of just using "coarse" positioning, which is all you need to identify the city. GPS sensors cost an awful lot of battery life and should only be used for apps that need precise positioning, imho.

[realrocker]

I am no longer associated with the project. I built the first version. You could probably go through the app reviews on play.google.com to get ideas.