On my way home tonight I fired up Google Maps to get an address and since I use Latitude, I was also activating my location. Â I got an sms telling me my friend and colleague Will was “nearby.” Â I received the image above in an email with a similar message …
I actually had forgotten I had turned on these location settings, and now that I see how they really function, I have a few suggestions:
- 50+ KM is not exactly a practical range for spur of the moment meetups for starters. Â Will was 52km away when the alert triggered …
- There’s no contact number in the sms alert which forces a few more steps to contact (call or sms) the person
I love the idea of social location and if you follow me across various services I’m sure you’ve noticed as well. Â What Google is doing is trying to make it easy through the use of location history, but it’s still unclear how that works without constantly opening Maps. Â I can’t afford to let Latitude project my location in the background all day as GPS tends to eat batteries … Â I’m wondering if there isn’t some sort of data partnership to be had with the various check-in services (or even Yelp!) to augment the more direct GPS tagging you do with maps. Â The more data in the mix here the more valuable the results.
Btw – Will developed the Michael Ruhlman Ratio iPhone app – be sure to check it out!