Comments on: Latitude Media Coverage Needs More Latitude http://www.vicchi.org/2009/02/08/latitude-media-coverage-needs-more-latitude/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=latitude-media-coverage-needs-more-latitude Geo-blogging, geo-talking and geo-tweeting, these are the occasional ramblings of a self professed "geek with a life" Sat, 21 Jan 2012 09:44:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Christopher Osborne http://www.vicchi.org/2009/02/08/latitude-media-coverage-needs-more-latitude/comment-page-1/#comment-3 Christopher Osborne Sun, 08 Feb 2009 20:31:03 +0000 http://blog.vicchi.org/?p=52#comment-3 It feels like Google playing in the location area, its not a "finished product" as Scoble calls it. To me it looks like they've been waiting for other apps to soften up the public to sharing their location and now they're gently venturing into what can be a very contentious area, as they have no doubt found out from the negative press they've received. Something that shows me where my friends are and their Google update status is essentially useless, unless its opened up to third party apps - very few of my friends/family/associates actually have a Google account or update their status, if they do they use Facebook or Twitter; a location enabled social network should facilitate socialising and right now not many people actually socialise on Google they do it on a proper social network. So what is Latitude? Its a first step: they need users to get used to sharing their location with Google, they need to learn how to process this data effectively and then figure out how to monetize your location. I was/am writing a blog post about Location Driven Context including the issues of location and security, where I make the case that the three principles for secure location are: permission, resolution and trust. Permission - Ok, they do ask your permission to share your location, great. BUT their murky T&Cs hide what they are going to do with your location data, and I share your unease with Google owning all my data. Resolution - I need to be able to set the resolution at which I share my location with others. Exact for close friends and family, neighbourhood for friends, city for acquaintances etc. Latitude completely fails at this. Trust - Right now its too early to tell if people will trust Google with this. Lots of bad press coverage is not a good start, their secretive approach also completely alienates the developer community. It feels like Google playing in the location area, its not a “finished product” as Scoble calls it. To me it looks like they’ve been waiting for other apps to soften up the public to sharing their location and now they’re gently venturing into what can be a very contentious area, as they have no doubt found out from the negative press they’ve received. Something that shows me where my friends are and their Google update status is essentially useless, unless its opened up to third party apps – very few of my friends/family/associates actually have a Google account or update their status, if they do they use Facebook or Twitter; a location enabled social network should facilitate socialising and right now not many people actually socialise on Google they do it on a proper social network.

So what is Latitude? Its a first step: they need users to get used to sharing their location with Google, they need to learn how to process this data effectively and then figure out how to monetize your location.

I was/am writing a blog post about Location Driven Context including the issues of location and security, where I make the case that the three principles for secure location are: permission, resolution and trust.

Permission – Ok, they do ask your permission to share your location, great. BUT their murky T&Cs hide what they are going to do with your location data, and I share your unease with Google owning all my data.

Resolution – I need to be able to set the resolution at which I share my location with others. Exact for close friends and family, neighbourhood for friends, city for acquaintances etc. Latitude completely fails at this.

Trust – Right now its too early to tell if people will trust Google with this. Lots of bad press coverage is not a good start, their secretive approach also completely alienates the developer community.

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