The Social Networker

by Chris Miller at 12:39:51 PM on Thursday, February 5th, 2009
The buzz on Google Latitude it hot, and much of it is attitude about sharing locations.  Where have all these people been?  Location sharing is not a new topic or event.  Brightkite and others have been doing it well, as that is all they do.  And building services around it.  What seems to be the focus of everyone's posting is the sharing of your location.  One thing that Latitude does not do yet, is store your previous locations.  Meaning they have not built a service around your trends yet.  So let's get into privacy and stalking shall we?

Privacy
- I am hearing huge amounts of concerns about sharing your location.  Forget location services for a second,  many of us say where the heck we are all day via Twitter, blogs and other tools.  Your privacy is as open, closed, exact or wide as you decide.  Do you honestly think I do not know what city you are in?  Do you honestly think I could not find more of your profile information and piece it together?  You control your own settings, when Latitude updates and to what extent you share.   Latitude offers you the ability to share, set or hide your location.  

Inside of Google maps there is 2 features,  "My Location" and Latitude.  The cool part that many are missing is that they can be enabled or disabled independently of each other.  My Location uses Google maps to provide approximate location services.  Latitude takes it to the next step by sharing this information with friends that you have specified, or the public.  My Location also does not associate anything about where you are with an account name or phone number.

The whole idea is being aware of what information you are sharing and to whom so you do not lead to stalking or accidental run-ins you never wanted.  The accuracy of where you are depends on how you enter or obtain the location
  • Hand enter an address - well you give them the exact location and it is shared to those you let see exact addresses.  Not help below on giving city only access to some
  • Hand enter a city - well everyone gets a city location
  • Wifi - it will use the nearest access point you can connect to and it knows the source.  One of the fun ones about this is that you could go to a Harrah's hotel in one city and it uses their network out from Vegas.  So you go from being in one city to the next in seconds.
  • My Location - it will use the good old cell phone tower triangulation technique.  The more towers it can see, the better the accuracy.
  • GPS - well how good is your line of sight to the satellite?  There you go


Stalking
- This is an entirely different beast.  While you could hide your exact location for a specific friend, if they are stalking you they shouldn't be a friend in the first place.  But let us assume that you do not know you have a freaky person watching your every move and hoping to be in the same place as you "accidentally".  You have now entered SocialStalking land. and privacy rules on location services from Google Latitude.  You can move anyone at any time to city level awareness only.  Go into your friends list - more info - options -and change them to city level.  This gives you the best of both worlds.

If you are sharing exact location across the public stream or  they  are a friend, they can get directions to your location as well as cal a phone number listed that you have shared out.

Summary
- Share where you are, be more transparent.  But be damned aware of who you share it with and at what level.  Do not be afraid to limit a view to city only or not accept a request.  But for us early adopters that use 14 different location services already, stop the attitude.

  • 1) Google Latitude, what’s all the attitude?
    Created by Greyhawk68 at 02/05/2009 2:12:50 PM email | website

    I know you are having fun with the Latitude/Attitude rhyme, but I don't think my post ( { Link } ) reflected any new attitude myself. I've always been a little leary of the location services. Just seems to me that if people know where you are all the time, then it makes it easier to stalk you and/or rob your home or car etc.

    I wasn't too concerned with Brightkite and their ilk as the sample size of users seemed pretty low, but once Google jumped in, and added automatic updating and maps integration to boot, then it went to another whole level for me.

    I'm sure it can be helpful to some people, but the potential for abuse is there. As with anything online, you do have to be prudent of who you share with. I could see myself having far fewer friends on something like this than twitter or facebook.

    You just wonder what Google can do when they tie your search queries, emails, websites and everything together with location. There could be some really cool applications (giving you a coupon of a place you searched when you drive by it etc.) but it does still creep me out a bit, dunno why.

    To each their own I guess. Just wondering when Google turns into Skynet :-)

    -Grey

  • 2) re: Google Latitude, what’s all the attitude?
    Created by Chris Miller at 02/05/2009 3:01:21 PM email | website

    @John - LOL I hadnt even read yours yet. I was following more of the social mainstream posters I have been peeking at and also Twitter

  • 3) Google Latitude, what’s all the attitude?
    Created by Julian Woodward at 02/06/2009 10:42:28 AM email | website

    "Share where you are, be more transparent" - why?

  • 4) re: Google Latitude, what’s all the attitude?
    Created by Chris Miller at 02/06/2009 12:41:27 PM email | website

    @Julian - half the amount of networking you do is with people you meet face to face. I am not saying to broadcast all day and all night your every location (note that I don't). But when you are in public, some of the best contacts you make are chance encounters. Showing where you are overlays with others there too. I ran across a graphic designer today that way

  • 5) Google Latitude, what’s all the attitude?
    Created by Julian Woodward at 02/07/2009 1:46:23 PM email | website

    I would say about 80% of the networking I do is with people I meet face to face - the online stuff is merely there to support real-world contacts. I guess maybe I'm too old, too conservative, too conscious of identity theft and other issues, or all three, to want to use something like Latitude or Brightkite to tell complete strangers where I am - even if they are graphic designers!



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