Google Latitude is a new service that will allow you to track the location of friends and family via your phone or PC.
Latitude is an add-on to Google Maps mobile software - you'll need to update to the latest version (3.0.0 at time of writing, no iPhone or Android (weird) support yet but I am up and running on my Blackberry Pearl - not sure how devastating it will be to battery life). The service automatically detects my location using cell triangulation or GPS (if it is available) - and broadcasts my position to people I choose from my Google contacts list. Interestingly you can set your location manually too - "I am at work boss, honest check on Google Latitude...". If you have limited GPS coverage i.e. are inside or just don't have coverage then you might be able to use Sky Hook, haven't had a play myself, but it looks like a neat software solution to get accurate positional data using the information available (Wi-Fi access points, GPS satellites, cellular towers ...).
My friend in Dubai (I doff my hat to you Mr. Harris) showed me this and he is sharing his location so I can see this view in Google (iGoogle Gadget) and something similar on my phone:
This could enable quite a lot of neat collaboration applications and some scary ones too. Could be useful to share your interests / ideas with people in the vicinity or if someone is a doctor / first-aider / plumber etc to let others know. Your location could be picked up by digital advertising to offer the right ad to cover the majority people or as you walk past a shop you could be invited in and have a tailored experience based on your profile/ shopping list / state of the fridge etc - never have to route around or be short of milk again. Like Brightkite (Facebook with geo), enriched with info from LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook it would allow people near by to check out your details - interests, position etc. So why are Google doing this? The picture that they can build up of our habits will be pretty compelling and probably fairly lucrative for the ads. From a BI perspective, another step for the brave Generation-V mentioned in an earlier post, BI Personas - A Pyramid of Need.
As always comments and feedback would be appreciated and feel free to add me on LinkedIn / Twitter from the above links,
John
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Update - 05/04/2009:
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Just where I want to be, one step ahead of the Metro. A free morning paper in London puts across its take on Latitude...
