GyPSii is a new social networking and geo-locating site / service for iPhone users, that claims it ‘takes social networking mobile for iPhone’.
I am probably just jaded when it comes to new social networking sort of apps, but that claim seems pretty out there to me, considering that Facebook has had an iPhone tailored app forever.
In any case, GyPSii is obviously gearing itself heavily towards iPhone users, and stresses its joining together of location info with social network aspects:
The new web-based GyPSii iPhone application integrates its multiple services into a single interface, making it easy for users to enjoy a wide range of new and exciting location-based features and services, along with social networking – all using the fluid, intuitive touch-screen user interface of the iPhone.
I’ve watched the (quite lengthy) GyPSii demo video this afternoon, and signed up and played around with the iPhone web app a little as well.
A lot of GyPSii’s ‘thing’ seems to be centered around places and sending the equivalent of updates (creating places) as you go along with it. So, if you’re a big traveler for work or pleasure this may have some good angles for you. You can send updates to a GyPSii email address with photo attachments and label their locations.
GyPSii’s demo also highlights how it ties into Google Maps in several places as well, though this is hardly a unique ability by now.
You’re also able to rate other people’s places and people themselves. This may be a super cool feature for some, but initially strikes me as a little odd. I don’t have a huge interest in rating strangers from 1-5 based on a glance at their profile, and wouldn’t particularly want to do that with friends either.
The folks at GyPSii are also promising a native app version once the SDK is out:
"We’ll work with the SDK as soon as it becomes available," he said, "and then we will be uniquely offering both web and native versions of our application for iPhone users."
Again, nice to see the enthusiasm for producing both native and web interfaces, but I’d be very surprised to see these guys beating Facebook or Myspace in terms of cranking out native clients for the iPhone.
The really hard thing for GyPSii, or anyone getting into the iPhone social networking area now, is how do they compete with the already deeply established players – like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Pownce, and all the rest. Even when trying out an app like this it’s a little bit of an uphill battle to get gripped by it – because lots of my friends and contacts are already on the bigger networks, and not super-keen on adding another one to the list of sites / services that you can’t get round to updating often enough.
The GyPSii app is OK – nothing spectacular, but nothing wrong with it, and has some nice features – but until it’s got a ton of users on it, it’s hard to get very attached to it, for me anyway.
Here’s there video demo of the app and its features:
http://corporate.gypsii.com/iphone/iphone.htm
Let us know what you think – is this a social app you’ll make a lot of use of?
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