Microsoft has announced the new ‘We’re In’, a Bing App for Windows Phone users. We’re In app from Bing works using the user’s Phonebook on the Windows Phone device and allows mapping locations and creating time-specific events. The app is available for Windows Phone from the Windows Marketplace.
Amidst several location based services, Microsoft Bing’s team has rolled out one that integrates Bing Maps. The new We’re In App is for people who love organizing meet-ups and hang-outs with close friends, relatives or colleagues. Using the We’re In app you can create an event and simply invite friends using their contact number from Phonebook.
In the invite you can specify the purpose of meeting in the Title box. You can also specify the time frame for location sharing – the upper limit is two hours at the moment. This invite can be sent via SMS (standard rates apply). Users who don’t own a Windows Phone device but have an iOS, Android, BlackBerry or Symbian OS device can accept the invite and join via the mobile web.
Users who have accepted the invite and joined a specific event will appear on Maps and can see the locations of the attendees of the event. Do note that your location will be shared only with users who have been invited and it will be shared immediately after the invite has been accepted. This will help people who’ve been invited to know others’ whereabouts.
Users can also share status updates which are visible through the user tile on the map. Since the events are time bound, location sharing stops as soon as the event expires. However, you can go to the People tab (the small, people icon at the bottom of the screen) and tap on ‘Leave’ at any point if you wish to stop sharing your location with others.
We’re In is quite a handy app that respects user privacy and allows time bound events which auto-expire even if users forget to turn off location-sharing.
The We’re In app is currently available only on Windows Phone devices but will soon be available on other mobile platforms as well.