Google's Latitude Surpasses 1 Million Users

  • February 19, 2009
Google's mobile friend-tracker Latitude has more than 1 million users already in its first week, according to Vic Gundotra, the search giant's vice president of engineering, speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

As reported by the FierceMobileContent newsletter, Gundotra told conference-goers "2008 was the year mobile Internet took off," citing flat-rate data plans, full Web browsers and improved user interfaces as causes for increased adoption.

Gundotra pointed to Latitude as one of the new kinds of mobile applications enabled by more powerful Web browsers and new wireless technologies. The GPS-powered app, however, has also triggered privacy concerns. The watchdog group Privacy International warned that someone could change a mobile user's settings to surreptitiously track their movements via Latitude.

The group suggested Google send regular messages to users telling them that their phones are Latitude-enabled.--Mark Walsh

2 comments about "Google's Latitude Surpasses 1 Million Users".
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  1. Mim-woo Kim from I&IWorld, February 19, 2009 at 9:42 a.m.

    [Title: Google Ocean + Google Latitude = Real-time Fishing LBS Contents]

    Have you heard about Real-time Fishing LBS Contents? We have proposed this Service Model to Google over 3 years ago. Real-time Fishing LBS Contents is Location Based Service for IPTV, WiMAX, Mobile. This Service Model was created in 2002 by I&IWorld. I&IWorld's located in South Korea. As you know, there're many people enjoy fishing in the world(about 5 hundred million). I&IWorld's Real-time Fishing LBS Contents is like these.

    *Main Functions*
    1.The underwater topography and 3D views with fishing spots
    2.Real-time fishing points tracing by GPS and angling direction guide
    3.Service the real-time fishing condition about fishing place(weather, water temp, depth etc)
    4.Angler Social network(such as Second Life)

    Visit http://www.koreacontent.org/co/i/iiworld/index.html. If you need more information, please send your email address.

  2. John Grono from GAP Research, February 19, 2009 at 4:35 p.m.

    No fishing ads from me - just a question.

    Did Latitude suprpass 1m 'users' or 1m 'uses'? The former means that 1m people used Latitude at least once, while the latter means that there were 1m instances of Latitude being used, some of which may have been multiple 'uses' by the same 'users'. For example, each user may have called upon Latitude five time, which would be 1m 'uses' from 250k 'users'.

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