"What's appealing to some may feel a little creepy to others," Newsweek continues. The same goes for the users when signing up for these location-based apps in the first place. What are you asking a friend, exactly, when inviting them to view your movements around a city? It really means you want to see where they are, and who else they may be with. You're not going for friendship so much as mutually assured surveillance.

That users are lying may be painful to friendships, but it's all that's holding the social fabric of these apps together. At Brightkite, glossing over the truth is even built in as a feature: Instead of your precise address being sent as an update, you can opt to have only your city transmitted. Of course, some of your "friends" will figure out immediately that you don't trust them with your whereabouts.

All the more reason not to lean on the "social Web" to manage relationships. The very people most inclined to make use of these apps are the ones who could never pull off fibs with any delicacy in person. Ideally, new services would take people out of the equation even more, and let computers have a go at these problems from start to finish. When I ask my phone where the nearest cafe is, why can't it just know that I mean "the one where my ex isn't currently on a date with someone else, ignoring her and refreshing Twitter"?

And here Mr. Henderson shook my hand and didn't mind at all when I said it was really his longtime companion Tom Coates, part of the Fire Eagle team and old queer hand of the blogosphere, whom I came out to meet. "We're here in my circle of exes," Culver continued. "And I have one to toss back at you," I added.

The rest of the evening is lost in a botched Flip video file sync — no footage for you — and a flurry of text messages wherein I tried to locate the guy getting a handjob in the men's room at the end of the night. No help from Fire Eagle there! Tip me if you know who the lucky jack was? (Photo by Andrew Mager)

Much rides on Coates's tail. His previous boss, Salim Ismail, was fired, in part due to Fire Eagle's delays. His new boss, Chad Dickerson, has flown down from San Francisco to watch the launch.

The Microsoft takeover comes down to this: Bill Gates & Co. think they can outcode Jerry Yang's minions. Can they? Or does Yahoo actually know what it's doing? Coates's presentation tomorrow will form part of the answer.

• Denny's opts not to exploit the famous visit by YouTube's and Google's founders in its marketing, probably because of the Google boys' habit of sharing a grand slam and asking to hold the bacon "to cut our country's reliance on cooking oil." [MediaPost]
• Pictured: Why do articles about blogging always look like articles about killer earthquakes? [Tom Coates on Flickr]
• Want to work for the Gates Foundation? [Seattle Times]
• A few days ago, Yahoo bragged online about its time capsule: "This is the first time that digital data will be gathered and preserved for historical purposes." The text now excludes "is the first time that." Guess someone reminded the PR team about the Internet Archive. [Yahoo Time Capsule]
• Wired News catches an online predator by writing a program that MySpace claimed was impossible. [Wired News]
• Economist writer Megan McArdle has a great idea for full, full, full disclosures in journalism and blogging: "Full disclosure: two years ago at a conference, John Chapman and I had a little too much tequila and ended up shagging like minks for three glorious nights." Valleywag commenters are encouraged to mimic. [Jane Galt.com]

The O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference (or ETech for the impatient) is in full swing today, after a rousing start on Monday. The event sold out ages ago, but through the magic of Scott Beale's photography, we can pretend we made it in. (If you want to pretend you met Cory Doctorow and he loved your sci-fi story idea, have that fantasy on your own.) Here are highlights from Scott's meticulous Monday photojournalism.

BBC blogger Ben Metcalfe is so tired of your bullshit.

"Just stand very still and do not make eye contact, and Tom Coates will walk away."

After the jump, Doc Searls kills a man with one bare fist.

UI designer Ben Cerveny chills with, I assume, a White Russian in a coffee cup.

Gavin Bell to Cal Henderson: "For the last time, I know that you are Cal. Now stop. Saying. It."

Cory Doctorow: "Ohhh man, this post is gonna need a unicorn chaser."

"I am pleased to see my 'impress the ladies with the clever nametag job title' plan has succeeded."

Moments later, Technorati's Kevin Marks tragically rolled over and was crushed by a surprisingly heavy inflata-chair.

"Look, it's okay if you want to wear a kilt too, but bow to the superiority of my tartan, okay?"

TailRank's Kevin Burton waits for the perfect "So, wanna buy me?" moment.

Blogfather Doc Searls answers all dumb questions with a jab to the face.

ETech 2006 Photos [Laughing Squid]