Google Latitude, When Will It Catch On?
I’ve been watching Google Latitude closely for several months for a few reasons.
Google and Latitude can offer:
- Scale: Google’s service is far reaching, and my content is a bit future proof knowing that the company is not disappearing over night
- Maps: The integration with Google Maps immediately adds functionality that others are trying to replicate
- iPhone: The immediate integration with the aforementioned Google Maps and included GPS is a perfect match
- API: Google could create an API for the service that means integration could happen with a variety of services and even more applications out there
- Data: Imagine the possibilities of harnessing the data, and understanding the crowd mentality on a very local level
The service isn’t ground breaking by any means, but the “Google scale” could make it an application that certainly reaches further than Brightkite (my personal favorite), Twitter’s location updates, or other services like Loopt.
Simon Whittick thinks the lack of growth is related to privacy concerns. I disagree, while there are certainly people out there afraid of sharing too much data the other networks have proven there is a market for such a service. But he does make a good point as well…
Google’s primary problem is that they do not currently compete with Facebook, Twitter or even MySpace for controlling or leveraging your personal social network or graph. OpenSocial hasn’t exactly created competition and Facebook and Twitter continue to dominate the real-time search and interactions on the Web.
But if Google were to open up an API or integrate the service with the Apple iPhone that could change. I continue to look forward to seeing an iPhone application, or preferably a direct integration with Maps on the phone.
Until then I feel Google Latitude will not grow. Proximity is just one data point, but it certainly is one of the more interesting items to layer against our social network and graph. I’ll continue to keep my eyes open for that killer implementation and launch of an iPhone specific application.
