More than 10,000 people have registered for Livecontacts, a free friend finder service that launched on April 15th. Livecontacts is offered by Findwhere who are the global leader in precision tracking technology. Other companies on the market charge around $2.99 a month for similar software but Findwhere firmly believe that the service should be free.

Jaap Groot, CEO of Findwhere comments: “The proof is in the numbers. People really care about this type of solution, and they don’t want to pay for it…
We look forward to continuing to serve them through our free buddy finder and services that provide security and peace of mind.”

With the Livecontacts application, individuals use their mobile phones to make their current location known to their trusted contacts and can then track their friends who are also using the service. The location of the user is found by GPS and can be switched on or off as required.

Over the coming months, Findwhere will integrate its free location data with a large range of social applications.

Frank Gruber, a well known technology analyst noted, “Livecontacts is taking the same approach that Craigslist took to democratize the online classified advertising space by offering users what is traditionally a paid geographic data service for free.”

Livecontacts works on any mobile network operator in the world. Findwhere plans to extend Livecontacts to iPhone in the coming months. Further more, Livecontact users will soon be able to upgrade to findanywhere’s new peace of mind service’s for the mobile phone, including speed reporting for teen drivers, location tracking for elderly parents and even a panic button to alert desired recipients in emergency situations.

A good feature of Livecontacts is that it is device and network agnostic, so users don’t have to be on the same network o share their location. The buddy finder can tell between domestic and international roaming therefore reducing data charges. Frequency settings determine how often a Livecontact’s user’s location is transmitted and this optimizes battery life through smart power management.