8 Situations Google Latitude Comes in Handy

A few days ago I blogged about the new Google Latitude, now it is time to see some situations in which Latitude can change how we communicate!

Latitude in real life

Google isn’t a company that develops applications that are not useful in making day to day life easier or more efficient. Although I am concerned about some privacy issues surrounding Google Latitude, it is a program you do really want to consider downloading to your phone. If you don’t want the world to know your location, you can:

• Limit who sees your whereabouts to close friends or family only
• Turn off your visibility when you don’t want to be mapped

When Latitude can be a life saver

You can probably think of a few more situations to add to this list. But here are 8 real life examples when Google Latitude comes in real handy.

1. Your significant other is always chronically late. Instead of starting off dinner on the wrong foot by constantly calling to see where he or she is, just follow them on Latitude. A bit stalker-like, but at least you know where things stand – literally – without any aggravation.
2. Planned a multi-car road trip? Don’t just drive behind each other, you’ll always lose track when separated by other cars. When you need to find the car leading the way, just follow it using Latitude. Of course you should keep your eyes on the road, so have another person in the car with you navigate.
3. Hosting a party? Instead of people bothering you for directions when you are trying to socialize, just turn on latitude on your phone and everyone should be able to find their own way.
4. If you have kids you can always track them by giving them a latitude enabled phone.
5. Tracking the whereabouts of employees. If you run a small business and need to know where your employees are when out on house calls (this could work great in the trades!), you can use Latitude to keep track.
6. Save on your phone bill by not having to call people to find out where they are! For example, if you are supposed to meet each other, but are both at a different Starbucks.
7. You need something from that little store on nowhere-and far-away-street, but it so happens your sister is right around the corner from it. How nice to just give her a ring and ask her to pick up the item you want.
8. If you lose your phone, you can immediately find it back by checking up on where it is using this program.

Without a doubt there are countless other situations where tracking your friend’s geographical location is handy. Can you think of any others, or have you used Latitude yet?