So, as Zach let us know yesterday, Flagr just launched this past weekend. Flagr is a web service started up by some friends of ours to flag (or bookmark) physical locations and share them with other people. Basically, it brings something like Delicious from the web to the real world.

Brian and I just got back from San Francisco (we were there for some other stuff which we’ll talk about soon enough), and while we were there we visited Matt, Dave, and Cole, the creators of Flagr. They’ve got a pretty swanky apartment in SF with a view of Alcatraz from their window. We went and had some Mexican food with them and talked about the launch. They are pumped, and rightfully so. They’ve been getting some good press lately, and they’ve also been getting some traffic from front page positions on Digg, Reddit, and Delicious Popular. Let’s take a more in-depth look at Flagr, shall we?

The New Hotness

First of all, as a self-proclaimed connoisseur of fine web design, I have to give props to the team for the mouth-watering design treats. Graphic elements are distressed, evoking a sense of worldliness that goes well with their primary function of marking places in the world. The colors are great, highlight what is necessary, and really make every page wonderful to look at. The colors even blend nicely with the integrated Google Maps for Pete’s sake.

It’s so juicy I could just eat it up. It makes me want to join AGAIN!

Be Worldly!

Once you’ve signed up for the service, you can start flagging locations. This can be accomplished in several ways:

1. Type in an address on the webpage of a location you want to flag.
2. Double-click the map on the webpage in the location you want to flag.
3. Send a text message from your mobile phone to x@flagr.com with the location that you want to flag (and even a photo!)

For places that you (or others) have flagged, you can click to view name, description, tags, photos, who flagged it, and other info. All of this is accomplished through the familiar (and, in my opinion, excellent) Google Maps interface.

As your collection of flags grows, you will generate a reputation for something called “Worldliness”, which appears to be based on a combination of the number and size of geographical area covered by your flags. Friendly rivalries for the top Worldliness rating have already begun to crop up among friends. Currently, my friend Dan Lin holds the record for Worldliness with 38%, but some new users are gaining fast…

Virtual Friends

Another cool feature of Flagr is the ability to create a group of “friends” who also use the service and then view only your friends’ flags. This can help to cut through all of the flags from people you could care less about if you’re just looking for that great restaurant that your friend discovered last week. Adding friends is easy, and it’s accomplished through a simple and sexy AJAXified interface.

It May Not Say “Beta”, But It Is…

While they may not be flying a Beta flag, Flagr is still very much under active development, and new features and fixes will continue to roll out of the pipe every week. I know these guys, and they won’t be content to just let sleeping dogs lie. They’ve set up pages for tracking bugs and feature requests so that they can continue to improve the service. Even if it’s not perfect now, my advice would be to jump on and try out Flagr now. That way, you’ll get to watch the evolution of the service unfold and even help to shape what it becomes.

So, if you haven’t done so already, head over to Flagr, read the How-To, and sign up now! My username is “sean”. Yeah, that’s the cool thing about getting in early on the beta.