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First look: Rally Up, a social network for real friends
I have to admit it: I like location-based social networking apps. Probably my favorite to date has been FourSquare, which I love because I'm the "Mayor" of a couple dozen locations. But this type of app isn't for everyone. My wife, for example, says that she thinks they're a bit too much like stalking (to which I replied, "there's an app for that"), so she won't use them. Rally Up is a new location-based social network (that's so awkward to say) that has several features that may sway my wife. The free app for iPhone, and soon for iPad, lets you set granular friend preferences. What does that marketing speak mean? Easy -- you set your real friends to "real" on a slider, which means that they get full notifications (i.e., "Steve is at the Blue Bonnet Café) and their check-ins show up in your feed. The next slider setting is "feed," which is for those folks who you want to know about, but you don't want to receive push notifications from. Next on the slider? "Lurker." Here, you can see what's happening with a friend, but you don't let them see what you're up to. And finally, there's "mute." What do you use mute for? It's for all of those people who you started following because of social pressure, but who you really don't want to follow.
