Google Latitude – Useful or Too Early to Tell?

In the future the phrase “Where are you?” may be a thing of the past. Google’s new application called Latitude allows users to update their locations from mobile phones as well as their computers. Yesterday I took my first road trip with Google Latitude enabled and had a friend track my location while I was out.
Instead of me explaining the ins and outs of Latitude. Watch this short video on how the service works.


There are several mobile phones supported currently although the iPhone is listed as “coming soon”.
Android-powered devices, such as the T-Mobile G1
iPhone and iPod touch devices (coming soon)
most color BlackBerry devices
most Windows Mobile 5.0+ devices
most Symbian S60 devices (Nokia smartphones)
many Java-enabled (J2ME) mobile phones, such as Sony Ericsson devices (coming soon)


A Quick Mobile Tour
To install Google Latitude on your phone go to http://www.google.com/latitude/intro.html and type in your cell phone number. A text message will arrive almost immediately providing a link where the software can be downloaded. I’m using it on my Blackjack II running Windows Mobile 6.1 currently.
Once installed, launch Google Maps on the phone. Here are a few screen shots that should give you an idea what to expect on a Windows Smartphone.

Useful or Not?
At this point and time only early adopters are using the service it seems. There hasn’t been enough “buzz” around it yet to get massive adoption, at least not within my network.