CheckInOn.Me

CheckInOn.Me is an automated personal safety system that works over text messaging. There are no phone apps to install, upgrade, or worry about compatibility or crashing. Any phone that can send or receive text messages can use this. When you sign up from the website (via a computer or mobile device), you'll give us your "I'm OK" code word and your "I'm not OK" code word. Once you have confirmed at least one friend, you can set up a future event with what times you want to be checked, or you can text us special commands that start and stop us checking on you. Our "Check" is a text message that looks like it's from a friend. That way, a bad guy who took your phone doesn't know it's from a safety system. We're now waiting for either code word from you. If we don't get the right response in the right amount of time, we alert your confirmed friends/family that you might be in trouble. That means that we're proactive, and can try to get you help even if you can't get to your phone. Your contacted friends can then use CheckInOn.Me as a simple group messaging system. That way, everybody knows that SOMEBODY is taking action to help you.  Our system does not contact law enforcement or emergency services because we do not know if there is a real emergency, we don't know the nature of the emergency, and we can't be sure of exactly where you are. We launched a few weeks ago, and are still working on the accuracy of the GPS information that Google is feeding to us. We plan to eventually work directly with mobile carriers so that GPS and triangulated data are sent directly from them. However, for version 1, we have been using Google Latitude. We are also working on developing an API so that anybody can build on our platform or private label the system. This means that the campus police could build CheckInOn.Me to contact them, if they chose to create that feature. It could even be built in other languages. CheckInOn.Me uses a freemium model. For early adopters starting on November 1, 2011, we are considering offering this completely free for 6 months. We have a provisional patent filed, and plan to file the full patent in early 2012. That allows me to say we are, "Patent pending." Learn more on our Tour page at http://checkinon.me/tour. Or turn up your speakers for our YouTube video.