Google Latitude is a fairly new service from Google that allows you to find your friends. But Google Latitude is more than just that. Using Latitude’s API you can do a number of other tasks. You can pull location information and display it on a map of your own, which enables you to pull from multiple users. You can also export a “badge” from your Latitude account that shows you where a single device is at any given time, as can be seen here.
The API and the ability to embed data opens up the opportunity for a variety of custom mashup portals. Maybe you’re a delivery company looking to keep track of where each of your trucks are, or maybe you are an airline curious as to why your pilot is not at the plane, ready to fly or even tracking the location of each person on location at a production (ie – directly from RepTools). Google Maps has been an insanely successful tool for custom development opportunities for organizations. Adding Latitude to that mix goes beyond exporting an address from a database and displaying it on a map but instead gives you real time statistics on the location of your devices.
Google Latitude is supported by most smart phone’s and a number of other devices. There is also a Google Latitude app for the iPhone coming soon. For more on integrating Google Latitude into your solutions, contact your 318 Professional Services Manager today.
Tags: Development, Google Latitude, Google Maps, GPS, Real time tracking, statistics