Source: Bing

So there are a whole bunch of ways to share your location with your friends, an increasingly popular method of social networking. Whilst the undisputed leader in this field is Foursquare, there are actually a number of competitors. Google provide their Latitude service, Yelp have what is in essence a Foursquare clone running from their app and now, a new challenger enters the arena (forgive the Street fighter reference). Mircorsoft’s search engine Bing has decided to get in on the act.

We’re In is the apt name of this new service. There isn’t much that is new here, they seem to have adopted an approach similar to that of Latitude, avoiding the gaming aspect found on Foursquare. What is neat however, is the introduction of time limited invitational sharing. Simply, the user shares where they are to a group of selected people and decides how long ‘the invitation’ lasts. Once the time is up, you ‘magically’ disappear off the map; “Sorry guys, you missed me!”

Whether this feature alone will be enough to sway users away from the location apps they currently use is to be seen, although I personally like the idea of not having to tinker with my sharing settings quite so often à la Latitude.

Do you use location sharing apps to organise your nights out with mates? Comments and thoughts below.

More information available at Bing Community.