Explaining what Google Latitude is

(I do plan on writing a blog post about what I have been up to lately just like Vivian requested, but not right now; but do know I have actually started to laugh out loud again, so that's a good sign)

Google Latitude just launched and I have had some friends ask me what it is and other express some worry about its privacy implications. So first: what is Google Latitude? It basically places you on the map based on where you are. You can either set your location automatically (through your cell phone if it is supported or from an iGoogle gadget) or you can set it manually.

The other part of Latitude is you can see where your friends are. You can invite people (and obviously people can invite you). You then end up with a list of people who you are sharing your location with.

And this is when I help calm people down about privacy. To begin, only people you have explicitly cleared to see your location can know where you are. This means the general Internet cannot find out where you are. If I invite Vivian to see where I am she can, or she can invite me and I can say I am okay with saying where I am. But otherwise Vivian cannot figure out where I am even if she is listed in Google Talk for me, etc. I can also let Vivian know where I am but set specifically for her that she can only know what city I am or actually hide my location from her. So even for people I am willing to let know where I am, I can limit to the city level or actually turn it off.

Or I can totally lie for everyone. Since I can set my location manually or turn it off entirely I can globally control for everyone who I have said can know where I am where they think I happen to be (if anywhere). In other words you can very easily control who knows what about where you are.

So why use Latitude? For now there is no special service tied into it so its usefulness is purely based on looking at a map and seeing where people are. But I already know of some ways I plan to use it. For one thing, if I have a friend I am meeting and I am wondering if they are going to be on time, I can look at the map and see how far away they are. That can help prevent me from calling them wondering where they are or how late they are going to be if they have not called (which you should still do =). I can see if my friends are hanging out at home and thus potentially available to just hang out and some random evening. I could see who is on campus for going to lunch with. If people really get into the service then I could start setting my status message to something I plan or want to do and people can respond based on whether they want to participate and are close enough to (e.g. "want to watch tonight?"). I am even willing to share what city I am in with my parents so they know whether I returned from a conference or something yet.

For me the question becomes who do I share my location with and to what level. The easy one is my parents who can know what city I am in (sorry Mom and Dad, but you don't need to know what nights I happen to not spend at home). The brother and step-sister can know where I am exactly (and they already do). But what about everyone else? For right now the litmus test for me is whether I would tell the person where I am if they called at 4:00 in the morning, sounding kind of down, and they asked me where I was right off the bat. I would assume they were feeling crappy about something and wanted to come over to talk. If I wouldn't hesitate to the person where I was I am willing to let them know where I am exactly on Latitude. Now if there is someone I would not be willing to do this for but if they knocked on my front door I would immediately invite in on-site then they can have city level knowledge. This applies to people I know from the PyCon community and have actually met in person multiple times. In other words Latitude is not like Facebook and I will not approve just anybody I just happen to know.

I think Latitude is a rather cool thing. It definitely isn't new since brightkite, Loopt, and Plazes all did this before Google. But the as with all things Google, there is the Google effect thanks to everyone I know having a Gmail account means they can easily get on the service. Plus I trust Google to not abuse knowing where I am and to also keep it safe from leaking out accidentally.

Hopefully some of my friends will get into using the service to make it more useful. Plus I am looking forward to when the Android application gets pushed to my phone in the next software update. We are definitely moving towards a more connected world and knocking down that geographic barrier will help with that.