Last month Google killed four of their mobile services (Jaiku, Notes, Dodgeball<\/a> and the iPhone and Android specific variants of iGoogle<\/a>) and I was starting to have doubts about the search and advertising giant’s commitment to mobile. I shouldn’t have doubted, on Monday Google rolled out Tasks for Mobile<\/a>, and today launched a brand new service, Google Latitude<\/a>.<\/p>\n
None of this is really new, in fact it’s very similar to what Mologogo<\/a>, Socialight<\/a> and Loopt<\/a> have been doing for a couple of years. None of these services have really caught on in a big way.\u00a0 However, I think Latitude will be huge<\/strong>.\u00a0 Previous friend tracking apps have had a hard time growing because there is a lot of friction to the network building process.\u00a0 First you have to know about the service and install the mobile app, then you have\u00a0 convince your friends to do the same, and then everyone needs to run the app all the time.\u00a0 It’s hard to create much of a network that way.\u00a0 With Google the network is already there in Gmail<\/strong> which has around 100 million users.\u00a0 Google’s mobile Maps application is surely one of the most popular of installable apps as well.\u00a0 Virtually everyone knows someone with a Gmail account.\u00a0 The network is huge and Latitude is highly viral in that it offers to invite everyone in your contact list whether they have a Google account or not. <\/p>\n
I’m betting that Google has big plans for Latitude particularly in the social networking area.\u00a0 The benefits to Google of knowing the users location are pretty obvious when it comes to ad targeting so they have a lot of motivation to make this succeed.\u00a0 The beginnings of a social network are already visible in Latitute.\u00a0 You can set your status and upload a photo from within Maps. Your friend’s photos and status appear on the map and their Google profiles are a click away.\u00a0 Latitude also gives you options to connect with nearby friends using Gmail, Google Talk or SMS.\u00a0 I can see further possibilities for social networking in the form of integration with Google’s FriendConnect<\/a> and OpenSocial<\/a> and maybe even Google’s neglected stepchild of a social network, Orkut.<\/p>\n
Latitude is available now<\/strong> for color BlackBerry devices, Windows Mobile 5.0 and above and\u00a0 most Symbian S60 devices by visiting\u00a0 google.com\/latitude<\/a> with our mobile browser. Install the Latitude iGoogle gadget by visiting the same URL on your PC.\u00a0 Latitude is rumored to be part of the 1.1 RC33 update for Android that could be rolled out as soon as tomorrow. Google also promises\u00a0 support soon\u00a0 for the iPhone and iPod Touch and “many” Sony Ericsson phones.<\/p>\n
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Last month Google killed four of their mobile services (Jaiku, Notes, Dodgeball and the iPhone and Android specific variants of iGoogle) and I was starting to have doubts about the search and advertising giant’s commitment to mobile. I shouldn’t have doubted, on Monday Google rolled out Tasks for Mobile, and today launched a brand new service, Google Latitude. Latitude adds location tracking to the Google Maps mobile application and to iGoogle on the desktop.\u00a0 You can track yourself and anyone … Continue reading