Google has made its Latitude product more desktop-friendly with the addition of a dedicated Web site on Wednesday. The service, which lets you share your location with friends, has been available via smartphones and a desktop widget since last year, but now it's expanding to the browser.
"You can now see where your friends are, start using Latitude apps, and share your location all from one place when you're at your computer," Kenneth Leftin, a Google Mobile Team software engineer, wrote in a blog post.
From the "Friends" tab on the Web-based Latitude, users can see where their friends are on Google Maps, add friends, share their location in Google chat, and control their privacy settings to determine who gets to see their location.
Google.com/latitude also provides access to Latitude apps. Google Location History (Beta), for example, stores location history, while Google Location Alerts send alerts when friends are nearby. You can also publish a Location Badge to a user's blog or Web site.
"We launched Latitude with a desktop iGoogle gadget to help you stay in touch with friends and family that may not have a smartphone," Leftin said. "We've since learned that a desktop experience is important to you even if you're already using Latitude on your phone."
To access, users will have to give Latitude permission to access their location, just like on a smartphone.
Latitude first launched in early 2009. Foursquare also provides location-based data, and Facebook recently threw its hat into the location ring with the launch of Facebook Places. On that note, it was reported this week that Facebook was awarded a patent that gives it sweeping intellectual property rights regarding location-enabled social networking.