Let’s face it, there are times as an agent when things can get a little creepy. Open houses, showing homes, and dealing with bank owned homes can create situations that are a safety risk. These are the times when it would be really nice to let a significant other, office manager, or assistant have the ability to know your exact location in real time. With today’s web and GPS enabled smartphones, this is now possible.

Agents running Android or iOS phones can now use a free app/service called Glympse. From the app, the user can choose to send a link via email, text or even Tweet it out to the world. The link directs others to a site that tracks your phone in real time, letting others know exactly where you are. If those others also have Glympse installed on their phones, they can track you from their phone.

The feature I like best about the app is that the user can set a timer for how long they want to share this information (from 10 minutes to 4 hours). Once the timer is up, the link to the location goes dark. Because, let’s face it, there are times when we want people to know exactly where we are, but most of the time, that can feel a little creepy in itself.

There are longer term solutions for tracking a phone that can be used for both iPhone and Android users. Any of the “Find My Phone” type apps can track a phone 24/7. That might work for a significant other, but is probably TMI for anyone else. Glympse let’s users share this info, privately, or publicly for a short period of time where the user really wants someone else to know where they are. Then privacy is restored.

Glympse is free for now and worth checking out.