Google Latitude
 |
|
| Developer(s) | |
|---|---|
| Initial release | February 5, 2009 |
| Development status | Retired |
| Operating system | Cross-Platform |
| Available in | 38 languages |
| Type | Web application, Mobile application, Social location |
| License | Google Latitude |
| Website | www.google.com/latitude |
Google Latitude was a location-aware feature of Google Maps, developed by Google as a successor to its earlier SMS-based service Dodgeball. Latitude allowed a mobile phone user to allow certain people to view their current location. Via their own Google Account, the user's cell phone location was mapped on Google Maps. The user could control the accuracy and details of what each of the other users can see — an exact location could be allowed, or it could be limited to identifying the city only. For privacy, it could also be turned off by the user, or a location could be manually entered. Users had to explicitly opt into Latitude, and were only able to see the location of those friends who had decided to share their location with them.
On July 10, 2013, Google announced plans to shut down Latitude, and it was discontinued on August 9, 2013.
Dodgeball was founded in 2000 by New York University students Dennis Crowley and Alex Rainert. The company was acquired by Google in 2005 and Crowley and Rainert hired, which led to the coinage of the term . In April 2007, Crowley and Rainert left Google, with Crowley describing their experience there as "incredibly frustrating". After leaving Google, Crowley created a similar service known as Foursquare with the help of Naveen Selvadurai.
Dodgeball offered a facility to users by way of SMS. Dodgeball was available for the cities of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Miami, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis–St. Paul and Denver.
...
Wikipedia