What Is Google Latitude?

Location Sharing:

Latitude allows users to share their physical location with other users on their contact list. Likewise, they can see the location of their contacts.

Privacy:

Your location is not broadcast to the general public. In order to share your location, both you and your contact must agree to the service and explicitly turn Latitude on. You can disable Latitude at any point and either selectively or globally turn location sharing off.

Communicate:

You can communicate with people on your contact list by either text messaging, instant messaging, or phone.

Status Updates:

You can update your status on Latitude to let people know what you're doing at the moment, such as "in a meeting" or "watching a movie." This way people on your contact list can decide whether or not it is prudent to contact you.

Getting Latitude on Your Phone:

You can use Latitude on many mobile phones with data plans, including the T-Mobile G1. Visit google.com/latitude for more information.

Using Latitude Without a Phone:

You do not need a phone in order to use the service. You can also use Latitude through an iGoogle Gadget. Go to m.google.com/latitude to install the Google Gadget.

You can set your location to automatically update by downloading Google Gears, or you can just manually set your location.

Latitude is Google's social location service. I'm sure Google knew that introducing a service like this would stir immediate privacy concerns, so they rolled it out with privacy features already in place. Use with your own discretion.

If you primarily keep in touch with your friends and family through the computer, this may facilitate more face-to-face time by letting everyone know when you're in the area. If you're in the area but don't want to talk to anyone, update your status or turn location sharing off.

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