Share locations, messages and photos with family and friends
With localNet, you can create private (and public) groups, take pictures, post messages, find out where your friends are, discover what’s happening downtown, and much more. With both a Private mode and Public mode, it’s up to you how much and with whom you want to share. And with native iOS notifications, you can control whether you want instant notifications of updates to your groups, or to manage them on your own schedule (settable on a group by group basis).
localNet is great for business too
Retail businesses can create public groups to allow people to discover their products and services (social discovery), announce specials, or otherwise increase local awareness. Sales, delivery, and other businesses can utilize localNet to track day to day operations, document job sites, and more effectively manage their workforce. If your business is on the go, localNet was designed for you.
Revolutionary Categorized Public Mode
localNet incorporates a new paradigm for social discovery and networking – Public Groups. Any localNet user can create and mark any location with a new group, in the Public category of their choice. Want to sell your old car, computer, or furniture? How about sharing that great fishing spot at the old bridge? How about telling people where the best coffee is? Or publicize the big rally downtown? localNet’s innovative Public Mode lets you share and discover everything that’s happening in your local area.
Innovative Community based content ratings
localNet incorporates an innovative community based rating system, allowing users to vote others groups up or down. Each user also has a minimum rating setting, which will automatically filter out groups that don’t meet your personal setting. See something offensive, or that you don’t think is appropriate? Vote it down, and if the community agrees, soon it will disappear. With localNet, you get a vote on what’s appropriate content for your local area.
Unprecedented Cross Platform compatibility
LocalNet supports both iOS and Android, so you can connect with all of your family, friends and co-workers. localNet supports iPhones, iPads and iPods running iOS version 4.3 and newer. This translates to the iPhone 3GS and newer, the iPad 2 and newer, and 3rd Gen or newer iPods. For Android, localNet support smartphones and tablets running Android 2.2 and higher. We’ve aimed for maximum compatibility, while still providing a phenomenal user experience. In total, localNet supports over 1,000 different hardware devices. And with features like Facebook and Twitter Connect, native Push Notifications, retina quality photos, one touch webLinks, and one touch phoneLinks, localNet is a leader in social discovery and networking technical innovation.
Free
localNet is a free app, there’s no hidden charges or one year limitation before you have to pay for the app (like some other apps). And localNet doesn’t use SMS or text messaging, just your internet connection, so there won’t be any unexpected text messaging charges. You can also share messages and photos via your phones email application, or post directly to Facebook or Twitter. Free, the way it should be.
It’s just plain Fun to Drive.
Bouncing between the categories, watching the map view zooming in and out, pins flying onto the screen, seeing lists of other local users categories appearing, perusing your friends blog roll, or looking at the pins of where your friends are right now … It’s just plain fun!
Yes, localNet is designed to run on the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Android smartphones and tablets as well. localNet runs on all iOS versions from 4.3 to the current release. For Android, localNet runs on versions 2.2 and higher (requires armV7 or better CPU).
The Options screen, selected from the Options button on the Main Menu, provides a link to the user Profile screen. From your Profile screen, you can change your picture, description, nickname other will see, link to a web page, or even enter your phone number so friends can call you at the touch of a button (if you enter a your phone number, it will never be shown in public groups, only to fellow Private group members).
Once you select a user group from the menus, you’re taken to what we call the “blog roll” screen. Here, you can see all the messages posted to the group, or add one yourself. Each message contains date and time information, who posted the message, and an optional thumbnail picture. Additionally, you can tap any message to get more details – location information, a full size view of the image, or just profile info on the message poster. Also, at the bottom of the blog roll screen is the Mojo Voting Widget, where you can vote on the group – up for groups you like, down for groups you think should be filtered. It’s your call.
At the bottom of the Message Detail screen (tap a message to view its details), there’s a button called Share. Tapping that brings up the Share screen. From here you can email to a friend. If you have Facebook Connect enabled (settable on the Options Screen), you can also post to your Facebook account (images will be saved in a localNet photo album for you). If Twitter Connect is enabled, you can also post to your Twitter account. Below these buttons is an option to “Include text in photo”. If this is enabled, the text of the message is overlaid onto the bottom of the image, letting the photograph “speak for itself”.
Towards the top right of the blog roll screen for both Private and Public modes, is a yellow star “Favorites” button. Setting this to on will cause the group to appear in the menu for Favorites mode. By “Favoriting” the groups your interested in, you can quickly see what’s going on from a single screen (the main menu, in Favorites mode). Additionally, you can turn on notifications for favorited groups – and receive alerts when they have activity.
Relax. For messages you created, you can go to the message detail screen use the handy “Delete” button in the bottom right of the screen. Once you delete it, it’s gone. Permanently. If you created the group, you have this privilege for all messages in the group (after all, it’s your group).
After you create a private group, go to the groups blogroll, and then the Group Detail screen (see above). At the bottom left of the Group Detail Screen is the Roster button. From the roster screen, group creators can invite people to the group. The Invite Friends screen presents a list of localNet friends and also allows you to lookup people by their email address. You can add friends to the group one at a time, or select as many as you want at once, and then hit invite.
When surfing around localNet, you can add any user to your friends list by viewing their profile and tapping the “Add Friend” button at the bottom of the screen. Also, if you enable facebook connect, localNet will automatically add facebook friends that use localNet to your localNet friends list. Finally, you can add friends directly from the group invite screen by entering their email address (if they are localNet users).
Geo-Blogging is like blogging, however the blogs are location based (and shown as pins on a map in your area). Smartphones are the ideal platform for this, given their inherent mobility, built in GPS, high res cameras and screens, and ubiqoutous connectivity. localNet brings it all together into the most advanced geo-blogging app on the planet.
Yes, and no. You need to use an email address you can receive information from us from, and reply from, in order to fully enable your localNet account. We won’t spam you with advertisements, or sell your email address either. We only require an email address to verify your account (and deter trolls), and provide support in case of lost password, or other technical issues.
You can tap the title bar area at the top of the Blog Roll screen, (where the group name and group thumbnail photo are), and you will be taken to the Group Details screen. From here you can view a full screen map showing you the group and message post locations, view the group creators profile info, view the groups image full screen, view the group roster (member list – for Private Groups only), and if you created the group, edit the group options (such as promotions, or destroying the group permanently).
NO! Although localNet is a location based service, other people can see your location only in very specific circumstances: You create a new PUBLIC group on localNet. In this case, your location at the time the group was created is used as the Groups permanent location. You post a message in a PUBLIC group on localNet. In this case your location at the time the message was posted is used as the messages permanent location. You accept in invitation (or invite others) to a PRIVATE group. In this case, members of private groups can see other members locations. So, the answer is NO, random public people cannot track other peoples locations. Also, localNet tracks/provides no information while the app is minimized (ie, not fullscreen on your smartphone).
Public groups can last up to 30 days (or even longer in some cases), or expire in as short as 3 days. The key is the category. The "What's Up?" category hosts groups that all expire in less than a week. However, the Classified groups can persist much longer. Private groups last until you delete them (indefinitely). At the bottom of the Create Group screen is a short informational message saying how long groups in that category exist for, by default.
Audio Setting
If you want to listen to music, setting this off will mute all sound from the localNet app.Minimum Mojo Requirement
This is localNets content filtering system. Every group in localNet has a built in “Mojo” rating. While viewing groups, at the bottom of the blog roll screen, is a Mojo Voting Widget, where you can see the groups current Mojo Rating (as well as vote the group up or down). Changing your Minimum Mojo Requirement setting on the Options Screen (or lots of down votes) will cause groups with lower ratings to be entirely filtered from your phone!Max Search Radius
localNet is an inherently local service, showing you groups sorted in order by distance from you. This setting will allow more, or fewer groups to be displayed (allowing for better performance, and lower bandwidth).Facebook connect
Turn this setting on to connect to facebook, and post photos to your facebook account. Turning this on will automatically locate facebook friends also using localNet.Twitter Connect
Turning this on will enable posting messages directly from localNet to your twitter account (Android only).Credit Balance
This is your current localNet Credit balance. You can purchase localNet credits through iTunes or Google Play to promote your groups in your local area.Change Login Password
You can use this link to change your password.
App Screenshots
localNet v1.2
Released on 1/3/13- Added group edit feature.
- Added group refresh feature
- “Blurred” all Public Message coordinates to a range
- Various minor UI fixes and enhancements
localNet v1.1
Released on 12/07/12- First public release.
Your privacy is our primary concern
There’s a growing concern about Privacy these days, and a lot of it is centered around giant corporations and social networks collecting googolplexes of data on average citizens. Your real name, what web sites you visited, what you buy, who your friends and family are…. It seems to get more intrusive every day. It’s your personal information, and at localNet we don’t think it’s right for big companies to demand it just to use their service.
At localNet, we have a different idea about your personal information and privacy
- We don’t ask for (or want to know) your real name – we don’t even have a place to enter it.
- We don’t want to know your address. Again, there is no place to enter it.
- We don’t want to know your Date of Birth, first pets name, or high school.
- We will never use your private photos, profile information, or current location for advertising or promotion.
- We definitely don’t want to know your mothers maiden name. (what’s up with that?)
All we really ask of you is an email address to validate your account and communicate with you regarding technical and support issues.
And we won’t sell your email address either, period. Please see our Privacy Policy for details.
How does localNet share locations?
For Public Groups, localNet will only show the location where the group was created. Messages posted in public groups will show a rough distance from the groups location that the the user was at when posting the message (ie; "Less than five miles from the group location"). For Private Groups, localNet shows the location where the group was created and also the location where messages were posted from. Private groups also have an optional "Show Realtime Locations" setting which allows members to quickly tell where others in the group are. This setting is an option only when creating private groups, and users are alerted to this setting when viewing invitations (if it is turned on).
That's it. Those are the only mechanisms to see your location. You create a Public or Private group, and people can tell where you were when you created it. When you post messages to Public groups, people can tell your rough distance from the group when you posted the message (ie; "Less than two miles"). For Private groups, people can also see your location at the time you posted messages into groups. And if, and only if, the "Share Member Locations" setting is turned on when creating a Private group, then other members can see your current location. But remember, you will be alerted to this group setting when you receive the invitation. These are the only mechanisms provided by the localNet App for determining a users location.
With all geo-blogging and geo-location software, we think it's important for you to know how others can determine your location.
About Us
Vipah Heavy Industries, a wholly owned division of the privately held Vipah Interactive Inc, was founded in late 2011 to research and develop innovative social networking applications specifically designed to harness the power and technologies converging in smartphones. We set out to conceive, design, and develop an application that represents a paradigm shift in thinking about what is the purpose of, and what can we do with our “phones”. Utilizing award winning software developers that have worked with Fortune 500 companies as diverse as IBM and Hasbro, AT&T and Mattel, Vipah Heavy Industries stocked up on test phones and tablets, locked the doors and battened the hatches, and set about the task of redefining social networking on smartphones. After a year of intensive R&D, localNet was born. As our researchers quickly discovered with early prototypes, this isn’t your fathers phone. Or his computer. Or his camera. Or his GPS (or his map, or internet connection). Over the last decade, each of these technologies has evolved. And today’s smart phones contain the latest versions of them all, and then some.
Recognizing the power of each of these separate technologies is important. And recognizing what you can do with the convergence of all these technologies into a platform that fits in your pocket (your smartphone), even more so.
We think localNet is more than simple technological evolution. We think it’s revolutionary.
General: localnet@vipah.com Support: support@vipah.com Abuse: abuse@vipah.com