Web giant has just ramped the competition for Foursquare et al
Google has released an API for its Latitude service that will enable third party developers to integrate all kinds of location-based functionality into their apps.
This is interesting for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it potentially poses significant competition for the likes of FourSquare, who have a carved a niche around the 'check-in' model for location services
It appears the Latitude API will support check-ins, but perhaps more interestingly Latitude has been built to track location persistently in real time, which opens up a whole wealth of mineable data.
Google itself has offered a few examples of how the Latitude API could be used, from turning on the lights when someone is on their way home to traffic alerts and the ability to see if your credit card is being used fraudulently nearby.
Obviously there's a whole host of privacy issues relating to realtime location data, but Google says it will instruct developers to make clear to consumers exactly what information they require, with opt-ins mandatory.
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The Latitude social location service for mobile phones has signed up more than eight million users since launching, of which three million are currently classed as 'active'.
