Google Latitude - The Gift and The Curse

Google has launched an app that allows you to see where your friends are on a map. Cool huh? They call it Google Latitude and it looks like a GREAT way to keep up the various locations of your friends...or simply get raw-dog stalking people. I'll offer two examples of each and allow you to do the rest in deciding whether or not this a program for you. Remember, these are just two of infinite examples regarding the potential held within this application. Pick your poison.

The Gift:
For example, you're out on a Friday nite and you have a penchant for losing things...i.e., your phone. Make sure your battery is charged and turn this puppy on. If you wake to find your phone elsewhere, simply login to "locate" your phone. Should you be so lucky as to reach its general vicinity, then you're already leaps and bounds ahead of attempting to remember cab number 413I-23442 or calling your friend with the phone that you no longer have.

The Mediator: There is a setting which allows you to hide your location which is great when you feel a hankering for rewinding to the dark ages of 2007.

The Curse:
This is a crazy girlfriend/boyfriend's gold mine! If ever they levy the mandate, "I'd prefer that you keep it on all the times so that we know where each other are located around the city", you're effed. The catostrophic consequences that something like this could have on a relationship are both horrific and hilarious. How many relationships have been ruined by an errant email or text message? Too bad now that your psycho partner can get a real-time play-by-play of your where abouts, all of your friends will be laughing at the expense of your cyber jail. Run Forrest...run-

Excluding those two dumbass examples, I'm pleased with the flexibility provided by the product and would love to have more of my friends on it; if for no other reason than the fact that I enjoy maps and I enjoy reading the gmail status updates of my friends. In all, this has the potential to become one of the biggest productivity drains since facebook, youtube, online games, and email chains. But who cares. Pretty soon, ppl will know what I'm thinking and the notion of only knowing what I'm doing will seem as antiquated as placing a call with Zach Morris' 20oz cellphone.