I like geo-location services. If nothing else, I like the competition of trying to wrest mayorship of a restaurant or office from a social media buddy. But I also like it for the ability to see if any of my friends are nearby, and I’ll send a quick Twitter DM for lunch or coffee.

I also like how some restaurants like Scotty’s Brewhouse or a museum like Conner Prairie will offer specials to people who check in (Scotty’s: 10% off each visit you check in, plus a special bonus to mayors; Conner Prairie: $2 off your general admission on your first check in).

To me, Foursquare has actually told me a little bit more about my friends, and gives us something to talk about when we bump into each other. (I once had someone come up and introduce themselves to me at Hubbard & Cravens because they saw I was the mayor and recognized my avatar photo.)

But the thing I’ve always been careful of is to not tell everyone every time I check in. I turned off my Twitter and Facebook notifications, and only submit a location on special occasions (i.e. checking in at the Pittsburgh Steeler’s practice facility sometime back in May or June, or checking in at an Indianapolis Colts’ preseason game against the Bengals). But otherwise, I try to leave my general networks alone. Plus I just don’t want to pester everyone with my new location anytime I move three feet to the left.

So I’m a little leery of this new private geo-location service called Neer. Okay, maybe not leery, but I rolled my eyes a little harder than necessary, and gave myself a headache. Here’s what Neer says they do.

Neer allows you to privately and automatically share your location with the people you care about. Not everywhere you go, just the places that really matter.

Neer works in the background so you don’t have to. Go ahead, leave work and leave your phone in your pocket. We’ll let your loved ones know you’re on your way!

In other words, let’s say I select “Work” and “Home” as your important places — this is called “geo-fencing” — and I choose my wife as the person I want to notify. Then, my wife will get a little message when:

• I arrive at work in the morning.
• I leave the office for lunch or a meeting.
• I arrive back at the office from lunch or a meeting.
• I leave the office to go home that night.
• And when I get home.

I don’t know, it seems a little creepy. I mean, I love my wife, but I don’t want her to keep track of every move I make. And I don’t want to keep track of every move she makes. (10 cool points to everyone who just said “every bond you break” in their heads.)

However, to be fair, Neer probably isn’t for me. As TechCrunch said in an article,

Neer is for people who constantly have to keep track of each other and already do so with phone calls, such as husbands and wives with small children. Instead of calling every night to see if a spouse has left work yet in time to help feed the kids or put them in bed, or whether the school drop-off was successful, they can get a reassuring geo-alert.

Since this isn’t an issue for me, I don’t need the constant reassurance or helicopter spousal attention that Neer will give me.

However, I do like the idea of passively sharing my location with a few necessary people, even actively. In fact, the more I wrinkle my nose at the idea, it makes the blood rush to my brain, and I can think of a few business and personal applications where this might be useful:

• Long haul truckers who follow a specific route over and over. They can text stops to their family or their dispatcher when they have reached a certain location, like crossing a state line or arriving at a filling station.
• In town delivery drivers who follow a set route. Their dispatchers can keep up with them via Neer.
• Government employees who have to visit certain locations as part of a regular route.
• People who live in one city and work in another. A friend recently spent nearly a year working in Fort Wayne — 2 hours away — and had to call his wife every time he arrived at his apartment on Sunday night, and when he left the office to head home on Friday nights.
• Parents who send their kids off to college with a dodgy car. Just enter “the dorm” or “campus” into Neer, and you can be sure when your kid makes it back safely.

Okay, so maybe it’s not all creepy. Just a little clingy. But in the right circumstances, and to the right people, I can see this being a valuable tool for some people.

So here’s a video explaining what you can do with it.

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