Google Mobile Maps is getting a new feature tonight called Google Latitude. It will allow you to broadcast your location to select friends, family, and colleagues based on the coordinates of your cell phone (via GPS or otherwise). If you have the GPS feature enabled in Google Maps on your mobile phone, you are probably familiar with the reassuring, pulsating blue dot on the map that represents you wherever you go. Google Latttude is now essentially letting you share that blue dot with anyone you like.
But Google Latitude is a full mobile application in and of itself. (Download it from your mobile browser at google.com/latitude). You can keep track of where everyone is at any given time, and from within the app you can call, email, or IM them. Everyone you have opted to follow shows up as a picture icon on a map or in a list view. The list view is like a location-based Twitter.
Don’t feel like being tracked? Just hide yourself from select “friends,” or manually enter a false location as your current one. You can control how much privacy you want on a very granular, contact-by-contact level.
Latitude works out of the gate in 27 countries on Blackberries, Windows Mobile, and Nokia S60s. Android will begin rolling out over the next week, and an iPhone app is coming soon. In the U.S., there is also an iGoogle gadget that shows everyone’s location and messages.
In a sense, Latitude is a private version of Yahoo’s Fire Eagle geo-location service. There is no way to broadcast your location to the public at large, only to your own Gmail contacts. (It does not yet work with Google Friend Connect). Obviously, there would be privacy concerns with publicly sharing your location at all times, but it is already happening and public geo-broadcasting will only become more popular over time.
I wont trust this with GOOGLE
SECURITAS is allready doing it and have ALERT SERVICES attached to it.
Nokia and Securitas bring location-security services to the S60 masses
http://www.alla..._bring_loca.php
Tested on my Windows Mobile phone…pretty neat application.
But somehow incase of maps I find Microsoft Maps for mobile to be better than that of Google’s….but again that’s me.
http://www.livbit.com
Agree regarding MS Maps for Mobile. Vodafone’s http://www.pocketlife.com is using it as well and the app is far ahead of Latitude….
Hey Google:
It don’t matter. Earthcomber will be all around in the dark – Earthcomber will be everywhere.
Wherever you can look, Google – wherever there’s a fight for free location based services, so hungry people can eat at a local place nearest to them–not a McDonald’s sponsored by some Google banner ad…
Earthcomber will be there.
Wherever there’s a Google lawyer beatin’ up a guy in the free market, while Google’s overbearing owners bulldoze small competitors…
…Earthcomber will be there.
Earthcomber’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad at Google’s useless search box on a moble phone.
Earthcomber’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready–because their parents found the closest things near them via GPS or seven other ways just by scrolling, not typing in request after request….
and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they choose via Moble Earthcomber’s patented network(found on Nokia, IPhones, Blackberry Palm and Verizon phones)
… and livin’ in the houses they build because Earthcomber is a 100% free service –
Earthcomber’ ll be there, too.
Know this Google…. Rich fellas come up and they die, and their bastard kids (Loopt and Techcrunch) ain’t no good and they die out (because they can’t be sold in a depressed market)….
but Earthcomber keeps on coming.
We’re the service that lives. Google: You fellas and Loopt can’t wipe em out, You can’t lick em.
Earthcomber’ll go on forever
… cos we’re the people.
I have 1 question left:
Why hasn’t Google provided us yet with a FREE service that lets us tell them at what moment during which weekday we masturbate?
Actually, they have…
It’s called GoogleAnalytics and it tracks you even over porn sites that have it installed and then sends all the data to Google for them to store it in your profile.
Let’s party like it’s 1984!
make sure you have it turned off when you visit any lap clubs
A name like “Master Bate” shows what kind of idiot you are anyway.
I’m interested in knowing how this will work out with Google. I’ve tried everything under the sun! Websites like http://www.24conference.com offers voice broadcasting features and web conferencing for business owners and non-profit organizations. As far as Google Latitude is concerned, I think I may give it a try.
I just installed it on my BB. It’s not apparent from the article, but this is actually just a feature of Google Maps 3.0. A pretty sweet feature, because I use Google maps all the time, but only a feature non-the-less.
I believe this was one of the big gripes about Loopt et al, they were trying to make a service out what is merely a service of a greater location product. In this case, that product is GMaps.
BTW, your commenting has bugs, I didn’t intent to reply up here.
The first sentence is, “Google Mobile Maps is getting a new feature tonight…”
What is not apparent about that?
Google is trying to reach the mass with new and really nice packages like the goole ocean, then the google mars with NASA, and now its google latitute for the LBS space hoping to see it soon as google’s steps are always appreciated.
if they had named it “Google Locator” everyone would have naturally known what the application does. to call it latitude only confuses people and will need explanation. mobile is all about location and custom designed mobile locator engines. not latitudes or altitudes. some people know how to convey a message and some dont.
http://www.eflu...ator_34382.html
Yeah but Google Locator sounds much more invasive, like a search engine for people’s location. Only the government has that…..
lets see how useful this happens to be
…. twitter + location = where am I and what am I doing
You can use blummi! for this, it is twitter + location and other nice features, but still in private beta
Twitter location mashup: http://twitloc.linkstore.ru
doesn’t this compete with Loopt?
kill dodgeball, kill jaiku, now Latitude.. well google, you have my attention.
kill brightkite as well.. Too bad, I liked them
well it looks like google didn’t really kill a bunch of apps now did it? seems to me like they were reincarnated.
I dont think they killed anything. Like Sarah Perez said, Google Latitude is missing “The ability to connect to all our real-life, real-world friends.”
The key is unlocking the value of location on the web, since the Web is never going away. Do it with an open centralized platform through aggregation, widgets, an API and partnerships with mobile social networks and it can be done faster than on mobile.
Like what IRLConnect.com is doing
Wow. What a Me-Too product. Literally years later than all the other friend finder type products like Loopt. So now I can see where my friends were 10hrs ago, but what can I do with that info?
> So now I can see where my friends were 10hrs
> ago, but what can I do with that info?
If you don’t have an idea, other will
FireEagle allows anyone to build this kind of application. This seems like Google is trying to catch up to Yahoo.
At least Fire Eagle is open to any developer/platform and has oAuth built in.
http://develope....com/fireeagle/
yes ted, but does yahoo even integrate fireEagle into its own maps? whats left of the team now that brickhouse has been shuttered? google has something integrated and supported, yahoo has an orphan project from a closed lab
With Yahoo going Y!OS, I doubt this is the last we’ve heard of Fire Eagle.
Fire Eagle is a great (and, seemingly, superior) product. The kind of thing that Google gets credit for, but Yahoo actually stole their thunder with that shrewd acquisition.
Fire Eagle wasn’t an acquisition, it was developed by Yahoo employees at Brickhouse.
Honestly, who didn’t see that coming?
What do you think this means for mobile social networks ? Will they survive? Will Google crush them or will they still have a place ?
Interesting to send the location only to your Gmail contacts. Not such a new concept though. jtribe.com.au has released apps (PinPoint) for iPhone and Android phone month ago to tell friends where you are. Seems like Google wanted to cover the other end of the mobile spectrum Symbian, Blackberry and Windows.
Something I find pretty confusing with this move is why google would do this ? Surely, if Googles aim is to sell more advertising – they would provide more tools to developers to easily integrate mobile maps into their services and then distribute mobile advertising via this mechanism.
Instead of this “distributed” move – they release a competing product to many existing social networks out there which incorporate location which gets other services “mad” and says “fk you Google we aren’t integrating your services if others are available and we aren’t using your ads”
To me it just doesn’t make sense. The success of adsense was working with publishers not against them. It’s like Google releasing a “Newspaper” called the “Google Times” and then expecting the New York Times to be happy with it. Or with Google launching “GoogSpace” and saying to Myspace “oh don’t worry – still use us for search and ads”
To me, its just a very very very weird move
“fk you Google we aren’t integrating your services if others are available and we aren’t using your ads”
… but we will still need your maps!
funny thing that G’s addense dont work on mobile devices. not practical. G is gonna have to really organize their content and change their ad system to compete on mobile. did someone say rolodex location based advertising? i did.
CellularLocator.com – mobile on a mission
Well, it’s been done hundreds of times already. A lot of the android developer contest entries were LBSNs (including our 5 day hackfest attempt). Not really surprised that Google is having a go at it. They are often late to the party, which is fair enough because they tend to be aiming for a more mainstream audience and they have to build something that will scale. It’s something VC’s try to keep in mind – what’s going to stop Google from taking the mainstream audience? I think in many cases users commit to the services they are already on, and if your service keeps getting bigger through network effects, google isn’t necessarily going to be able to fight it even with their distribution and brand – they may have to buy you instead – eg, YouTube. So I think the only LBSN that really have to worry about this are the ones with no real traction.
Privacy? This is the perfect tool for stalkers…
Just an example:
http://blog.mob...instrument.html
G.
Nope- They were pretty thorough with the security model. The only people who can see your location are the ones you’ve authorized to do so- It’s white-list based, nobody can track you by default.
In these internet age, there is always a breach of security. I am tried of here security breach on the news.
http://www.quamdata.com
It’s definitely a nice feature, but I wonder how secure these location-based services really are…
What amazes me.. Microsoft were demoing this YEARS ago.. where did it go?
Are they just too slow?
Sounds like Loopt needs to be slightly concerned. I’m guessing the layers of information based on this “social network” of your gmail contacts is only going to increase.
This is something interesting from Google. But will it tell information exactly?
I think these emerging mobile apps are really interesting. On the privacy side of things, it’s important to remember the phone is the tracked device, not the person – so you probably cant use Latitude locations as alibis – well not yet anyway!
It’s about time google did something like this. Sounds like a great service to the people, though I don’t like that you can misrepresent your location intentionally. I would think you could just turn it off if you don’t want someone to find you. Straight out lying seems to be the downside of this product and will get plenty of people in trouble in the long run.
Actually, the ability to lie is a very, very important component of privacy that shouldn’t be underestimated.
This is similar to the functionality in the Soeet application except that Soeet has many more business features and lets employees control business logic from the app both on iPhone and Android.
It also has citrus’s functionality built into the server side for AD and LDAP.
Oh great, like I want to tell my internet stalkers where I am or where I live at. Yeah right!
You know how on Picasa you can have a key protected album with a hash key???
I haven’t used this new app yet, I will today, but I bet there is some type of protected mode for your private list of friends.
The point of this app is that it kills everything that was a multi-purpose LBS, and messaging system. Like Loopt and the others.
Loopt is now the Kiko.com of LBS. I am expecting an eBay posting any day now in the e-commerce section.
The point is that anybody that was counting on LBS as “the” feature is now lost. LBS will become a staple of mobile and web apps like ajax is now.
This should have been expected and planned for in your business plan if you are developing said mobile apps.
I think it’s pretty poor imitation of Yahoo!’s FireEagle – as for now, Google Latitude isn’t even nearly close to FireEagle, which, metaphorically, gives you longitude as well.
Have a strong feeling Google right now wants to show at least something to give an indication that they’re on this market too. IMHO, of course.
Yeah, Google could never make a dent in the market they made an LBS API for when 10+ new Android phones are going to hit the shelves this year.
http://code.goo...ge-summary.html
I’m just wondering how many VCs accepted business plans like Loopts based on this who are now kicking themselves in the teeth.
This is absolute Kiko.com 2009 style. FOG.
Fire Eagle is a very different beast to apps like Latitude, Loopt, and BrightKite. Fire Eagle is a location broker which makes it easy for users to share their location information between applications.
So, if Google wanted to work with Yahoo, they could allow Latitude users to share their location with Fire Eagle, and then that location information could be used with whatever other apps they have linked to Fire Eagle.
I don’t think they’ll do it
Also, I’m somewhat surprised that Google didn’t announce it on a recent London’s #geomob event – but instead one of senior Googlers was talking about certain things which are cool, but not new.
Finally, to certain extent Yahoo! should say “thank you” as Google has created a buzz around the user location thing, even in the off-line media – while Y! already got a solution and a huge number of products using it (including Britekite and others).
So, as I said before, I’d say that’s pretty weak answer IMO.
This is so cool. I am gonna try it right away. Thanks google.
Seems like a pretty cool app…but I have been using Buddy Beacon on WHERE and love it!!!!!
Anyone know if the 3.0 version of Google Maps will work with the GPS on a Verizon Blackberry? 2.0 did not after Verizon unlocked the GPS for everyone with OS 4.5.
Does it (or will it) have Twitter integration?
It’d be cool it allowed to Twitter and post pictures of where you are. Like Brightkite, but on twitter, where people are.
Yeah Chris, I hear what you’re saying about that
nice app, since we can see, talk, chat with friend in this one. cool
Nice program. Nice to be able see my friends locations. works on my BJII.
I’ve been saying, Loopt and Brightkite need more features. Tracking friends’ location, social networking and messaging just not enough.
Loopt spent a lot of their $15M to chase after the carriers and later give up the monthly subscription model for Steve Jobs. Now, the million is gone. I wonder, it’s still worth – how many hundreds of million were they trying to raise with Allen & Co.
Just came across Life360. They won the Android challenge. Isn’t Latitude what they trying to do? Time to shutdown.
IMHO, there is no more room for yet another social network. If you are a small company, think clients that connect to existing social networks. It’s time for Loopt and Brightkite to rethink their business models. Maybe they can make money selling digital gifts
Let’s hope there is not another crazy deal seeing a desperate company buying Loopt or Brightkite for $800m – like AOL and Bebo. Who knows, this is what make Silicon Valley fun.
If Twitterfic on iPhone popped up a little “Twitter would like use your loacation” I’d accept. Powered by Google. Ditto for FB’s app. No problem. Next.
“Mein Fuhrer, when the citizens voluntarily surrendered their privacy and then requested us to begin tracking them was when we won”
Pity it does not work in South Africa.
Because we where relatively late to launch mobile phones, the South African cellular networks are surprisingly advanced. We rolled out 3G in 2004 and have massive 3G coverage.
I heard that Google has released Latitude early to counter Vodafone’s Pocket Life.
So Location Aware Services will be dominated by Google or a global mobile service provider.
The question is how Loopt and Brightkite will survive between these two giants.
Also see Financial Times: http://www.ft.c...?nclick_check=1
Google started this project a few years ago and it was more or less finished about a year ago. For some reason (e.g. big name competitor is pretty far with exactly the same thing) they decided to release it now and it’s great. It’s a bit 1984 but it’s great.
Wow… Google’s so innovative!
Not only are they late on the scene, they require everyone to have a Gmail account… which most people that I know do not.
It’s my phone… why not use my phone number?
really nice media stint by big G. can’t agree more with ‘lazysupper’ – i tested the app now extensively over the weekend and it is pale comparing it vs. http://www.pocketlife.com or loopt.com. No mobile phone contact list integration – Pocket Life is great at that, albeit a little slow. No media sharing – again Pocket Life gets 5 stars for that. No iphone – loopt gets 5 stars here – so google…come again – what kind of innovation have you produced here please…?
big google just took back their playground from loopt.
mywobile has a similar service with more offerings
ok.. now this is nice! keep up the good work google!
Yep this is very much like loopt – friends of mine started a smaller startup offers a more private solution to this and does synch w/ Twitter if you want – http://lifetack.com
Where’s the API for this service? It would be nice if we could write apps to integrate this with Facebook or Twitter. It would have been nice to just say, “we’re planning on releasing an API for it eventually”.
Agreed. Facebook integration is a must.
This is totally against the Internet privacy measures. I have read an article about Google Latitude in an SEO Blog
This is great for parents
(unless the kids lie about their location)
The problem is (in Europe and Asia):
Your real-life friends are stored on the SIM card. You want to find and meet the real-life friends in real-life.
As long as Google can’t access this data on the SIM card, the interest will be low.
Amazing! Makes it so much easier for new exciting location based mashups to come about.
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Let’s all help out Big Brother!!! It’s fun….all of the kids are doing it!
sheesh…what a joke.
Google Latitude isn’t a “full mobile application in and of itself”. It’s v3.0 of Google Maps for Mobile.
My Boss is now tracking where I am : (