The location sharing bubble might have started back in ye olde Loopt days but now everyone is on the bandwagon: Yahoo! with Fire Eagle (Fire Bagel as once internally called by Y! employees), Google with their recently announced Latitude, BrightKite, Whrrl, Groovr, Moximity and bundles of others. Alongside all of these products, there are developer-oriented tools like Mozilla Geode that help developers find their users’ locations (once asked) from their computer and do whatever with it. However, this all begs the question why?
First off, I’m not opposed to location sharing. It’s not even that crazy an idea when put in the perspective of Twitter and its whole “what are you doing” prompt. I’m just playing a little bit of devil’s advocate right now. Privacy is the central issue with any information sharing service and each offering has their own way of making location sharing “safe.” Still, would you use location sharing?
From a technical perspective, I think location sharing is pretty neat. Apps/services like Google Latitude can grab location data from either GPS, WPS (Skyhook-like; mentioned here), or via cell towers. The issue is that only a few of my wired friends would even consider using it, so what’s the point of knowing the location of only 3 of my friends? Granted many said the same thing about Twitter but now even non-techies love it. In an ideal world, I think a near perfect implementation of location sharing services would notify friends (perhaps via SMS) of their direct proximity to each other, such as if they happen to be shopping at the same mall et cetera, without having to load an app or check a website.
But I digress, the point of this post is to find out what the consensus is for location sharing services. I posed this question on Twitter and received a few interesting responses:
All of that being said, I don’t have a problem making my location public 24/7 and even considered building a small PC with GPS and 3G to put in my car when I’m out and constantly update my location on a live Google Map embedded on my blog (as done by some startup founder in San Francisco whose name currently escapes me). I’m aware that most people definitely don’t have this same stance, so feel free to chime in with your thoughts.
At the moment, I’m using BrightKite and that is hooked up to FireEagle which then dissemenates the info to various other services (outside.in, DOPPLR, etc.) at the varying levels or privacy or detail that I have set.
Big fan of BK so far, especially b/c of the location check-in as the first twitter reply in this post states. Context is key and I’m all for real data being used in real-world situations. It’s more important for me to know if my friends are at a certain bar instead of either it’s exact address or long/lat. Those might not mean a ton to me on the fly.
I like the idea of location aware computing but mainly for my own personal use. iPhone already can do some cool stuff based on where you are with the device, but I’d love to see it extended to my computer as well. If only Apple had built-in GPS with the new MacBook Pros. There’s apps that can trigger events based on your location, but they have to determine your location on things like network, USB devices and WiFi triangulation. It’d be so much better if I could build locations on GPS data.
Frankly, I don’t see more than 1 or 2 of my friends caring about me broadcasting my location, so I’m not in any hurry to get concerned about that side of things.
I don’t mind showing my position. Like you mentioned only a select few might use
It. My wife and I have T-Mobile G1′s and she made a taco bell run, and for fun we used
Lattitude. She did not have to txt when she was close, I saw on the map and was at
The door when she was home. Useful, no. Fun, maybe.
A GPS in your car for 24/7 Stammyness. I don’t know if I can handle it. Then again, Arrington-like stalkerism will ensue and that’s scary.
Personally, I don’t think location sharing is stupid, but I can’t think of a useful application for it at the moment (other than getting coupons and other ads for the stores nearby – this can probably only work as an added feature built on top of another product).
What really annoys me is all of these new services rock except for one thing: none of my friends are on them. What would really rock is if Facebook could become a player in this category, otherwise I’ll be left with my 5 friends on whatever other network and hence no motivation to update my location. What do you guys think about this dilemma?
I used brightkite for about a day when it first came out. I have no problem with sharing my location, but I’m not going to do it just because I can. I have no use for Brightkite, Latitude, or any of the others out there because nobody I know in my area uses them. Similarly, I’m not going to update yet another social media service just so people will know where I am.
However, if Twitter or Facebook integrated location-sharing, I think it would take immediately. It needs to be integrated into something people already use in a way they already feel comfortable with. Twitter could add an optional geolocation data with tweets, and Facebook could add either a check-in function or something to go along with the status update section.
Brightkite is really, really close to my perfect service. The only thing it lacks is a turnkey solution for live tracking via a huge range of devices. Fire Eagle doesn’t count for this, because it requires an extra step for setup. Oh, and that little thing of no one I know actually using it.
I guess if Facebook would gobble Brightkite and build Latitude-type support into it directly we’d be set. We’d have the feature set and friendship model of Brightkite (trusted vs untrusted – which is great), the market penetration of Facebook (which is vast), and the necessary live tracking of Latitude.
To be located, or not to be located… ’tis indeed a good question Paul. Like others I’m concerned about sharing my real-time location (“Attention Mr burglar; the coast is clear”). That said I’ve tried many of the location-awareness facilities available via iPhone and they got me thinking about a Google Maps mash-up that plotted not where I am this week—but rather where I’d prefer to be! That does away with the privacy concerns if you’re only letting on that you’d prefer to be on a beach in Samoa or skiing in the French Alps. A cheap way to travel during this economic crisis too! Mash-ups already exist that integrate the Google Maps API with Fire Eagle or Twitter; how hard can it be to build one that uploads a weekly mood-dependent faux location? Just an idea ;-)
i can understand how location services might be useful in a mobile device but they just seem a bit “creepy” when you think about your home computer having them. For the same reason i dont geo-tag all my flickr photos that were taken in my house, i also dont want my computer to say “Hey! here we are!” This is how i think of it. Lets imagine someone like you or me who runs a site, much like this one, does reviews on things you own, with descriptions and pictures and what not. For anyone who just happens upon them they could be able to find the exact location, wait for you to leave and rip everything off. I mean some one who is careful about keeping that stuff private should be fine but otherwise i see it as an open invitation. Maybe its just me being paranoid, i dont know, but it just sounds not right to me.
Now if new MacBooks (and those ‘other’ notebooks) came with a user selectable location on/off (like the iPhone) then i think it could come in handy, but then again i can see it only being useful in a ‘mobile’ platform.
It’s a good idea but sometimes it is dangerous to just give out one’s real address or specific location especially if some people might use it to their advantage like stalking and etc. This world can be a sick one sometimes.
On one hand, I’m sure the people who can’t find their loved ones in the bush fires in Victoria, Australia, would love to have that kind of GPS info. On the other hand, there is always those creepy people out there on the internet- are we going to tell our kids: “now, don’t share your location with everyone, you hear?” I dislike people knowing where I am right now. They can know where I’ve been, like a cool coffee shop that I’ve shared on Flickr, or a place I’ve visited while hiking- after the fact. I don’t have a problem twittering non-specific locations, like “at the mall” or “at uni” because people won’t be able to narrow in on me. But putting my real time location on a map? Creepy.
When I close the google maps app on an s60 phone, and I say still share my location with google… does it not update my location if I move anymore? Is this going to keep using my gps and run down the battery?
If I have google maps open, I assume it shows real time data for where I am?
no doubt there are many apps (and many more ideas) about how to use location aware services and devices. However, to make this more acceptable to general public, there should be solid privacy options- like define exactly who you like and don’t like to know your whereabouts etc.
Also, I’m sure there are many cars with built-in GPS, so you probably don’t have to add an extra computer just for that…
and as for the computer in the car thing.. take a look at this.. http://www.flickr.com/photos/37009071@N00/sets/1645157/ i think it would be awesome to do this, but wish i could do it in my jeep, too hot in Vegas in the summer though.
as for putting a computer in your car i think you should check this out.. http://www.flickr.com/photos/37009071@N00/sets/1645157/
not sure how much room there is in a mustang but i think it would be cool if it could be done. Id love to do it to my jeep but its too hot in vegas to do it. Neat concept though.
bloody YAY! enough of the social networking killer apps, how about some for Biz Networking like whozintown.com?
i’d rather know where my biz contacts were going to be vs my social so let’s start embracing the likes of ‘Latitude’ for it;s true potential :)
I think the location based services, in most cases, should be simply add-on services to existing social networks. Those are going to only get bigger in terms of mobile. Why create a niche location based service for each niche? I think exceptions exist for certain industries like dating with Skout; but even then, that would make the Facebook mobile experience all that much more interesting.
Think about how with Brightkite it doesn’t ‘track’ you, but instead lets you send out a ‘beacon’ of your location whenever you choose. I think this opt-in approach is the best way to ease people into location sharing because if you don’t choose to send a beacon nobody will know where you are. I’m happy to share my location when I go to cafes or different suburbs but I wouldn’t want to have a tracker running 100% of the time.
@rosshill – rosshill on brightkite.