Google Latitude: Very Scary or Very Cool
April 14, 2009 by Ryan
I’ve read that the government can track you, listen to you on your cellphone even if it’s off as long as there is a battery in it. For some people, that’s one of the scariest things out there. Personally, and I emphasize personally, I don’t mind. For one, I don’t have anything to hide. Two, I using this surveillance to stop people that are dangerous is worth it. (Let the 1984 comments commence)
My point is, this is already out there. It’s done. It’s part of our connected world. Yeah there’s negatives, but there are also many positives (I love listening & watching educational & inspiring podcast & videocasts). But why let Big Brother have all the fun?
Google Latitude
I have been a fan of Google Maps for a while and recently installed it on my new Blackberry Storm. After overlooking it several times, I noticed another option in the menu for something called Latitude. Basically it allows you to broadcast your location to a network of connections you choose. Here’s an fun little stunt the Google team pulled of using it:
Depending on how you want to view this, it can be seen as either very cool or very scary. Imagine citywide scavenger hunts! Imagine every one knowing where you live and when you are and are not home! I can definitely see both.
Ideas for Improvements
One good feature is that you can turn it on and turn it off. Turn it on when you want to broadcast and find others to meetup with. Turn it off when you are about to head home (before you get there, so you don’t lead everyone back to your house). I was discussing this with a friend on Twitter (@wmchan) and two ideas came up:
Maybe I’m in the minority by not worrying much about the “big brother” aspect of Latitude, mostly because it’s there whether you like it or not. But I think privacy features like these, or just plain common sense, can make Latitude relatively safe. My biggest problem right now is that no one I know uses it/knows about it, and so I haven’t been able to do much. I want to do some kind of TweetUp or scavenger hunt with it. I think it could be used for a crazy promotional thing for some local company.
What do you think? Too invasive? Too cool? Let me know if you would want to mess around with it and maybe we’ll have to do something.
How Do You Process All This Information?!
July 22, 2008 by Ryan
I have 28 34 (and counting) blogs that I read through my Google Reader. I follow 100 +600 people on Twitter & Plurk (thanks to ProBlogger). I find more and more friends from childhood, high school, college, etc. on Facebook everyday. How do I process all this information!?
I’ve actually cut down the number of blogs that I read (I had some that would post 5-6 times a day)! My reading of ZenHabits has got me to try and simplify. But at the same time, I just added like 80 people to my Twitter/Plurk/Facebook! One good thing is that the additions are not as demanding as the blogs. Which reminds me! I have like 5-6 books that I want to read!
I guess it comes down to priority. What priority is all of this information for me to get through? How thoroughly do I want to digest each source? It’s pretty easy to “fill up on junk food” with all the social networking. Even some of the blogs are low-nutrition! I know that I should spend more time of the information that has the best return on investment (i.e. books, quality blog posts & family info streams). Being that I aspire to income generating blogging, I also need to invest time into developing contacts and relationships. So, while there is going to be a good deal of personally irrelevant info, I do plan on spending time with my “new” friends.
Anyone else dealing with this? How do you handle it?
This post is part of my Information Overload Series
- How Do You Process All This Information?!
- Waiting on Diamonds to Play with the Rough
