Yahoo's social-mapping service

This can be like micro-blogging without saying a thing – Yahoo's new Fire Eagle geolocation service reports your physical location via blogging or social-network sites you choose to allow access to it, CNET reports. For example, if Twitter signed on as a partner, it could announce where you are whenever you post to Twitter, and the same for MySpace or Facebook. I don't think they're partners yet, but this is where things are headed: the marriage of GPS, or location pinpointing, and socializing on the fixed and mobile Web. It has security and privacy implications for users, of course. Fortunately, Fire Eagle says you have to turn the feature on, not just at sign-up. Every month is asks if you still want to share your location via the specific sites you allowed originally. It also lets users choose how granular the info is – I'm in San Francisco, or I'm at a specific street address in San Francisco. And users can shut it down for specified periods of time. It certainly spells the need for alertness when making choices about how accessible one's location info should be!