Would you / do you use a location-tracking service ( = Google Latitude)?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

My hubby and myself use Google Latitude continuously. Each of us can know where the other is at any moment, on a map, within the precision of our phones’ GPS units.

It keeps us from having to text silly stuff such as “Are you at home or at work right now?” or “I’m crossing highway so-and-so, will be home in 20 minutes”. And we get the feeling of staying connected during the day.

I also use it to

Quick description for those who don’t know about Latitude:
{
The service is voluntary (each partner has to agree to share their present and future locations with each individual partner). The tracked person can turn tracking off and on at any time.

The location is sampled about every 15 minutes, and on the map you see a spot saying “person Y, 3 minutes ago”. Only the most recent location is shown: you don’t see where the person has been in the past, although of course you could keep looking every 15 minutes. If the phone is turned off or the GPS is underground, the tag can say “person Y, 5 hours ago” at your last known location.

Google keeps a person’s location history in their Google account, accessible only to the tracked person and nobody else. You can see where you’ve been in the past week on the map, a few stats like how much time you spend at work in a given week, etc. The history can be deleted manually.

It works with Android and iPhone smartphones. To be effective, it requires some data transfer over the cellular network, maybe a few megabytes a month.

The service costs nothing. Presumably Google can show you better-targeted ads on your GMail page if they know you’re visiting Des Moines, etc.
}
I’ve described this enthusiastically to some people around me, and most recoiled in horror. Especially about revealing their position to their SO.

I know a few people who would be good candidates for this service, such as my brother-in-law (“I’ll be there at seven”, he says, and then he shows up at eight and we all eat dessicated chicken). But no, he’s not interested.

So, assuming you had the necessary equipment, coverage and free data package, how open are you to using Latitude or something similar, and who would you share your location with?

#2

I voted occasionally and my spouse.

I’ve thought about using it. When my Wife is training, she regularly rides 50 or more miles. It would be nice to know where she is.

I would really like it for when she is in a race. It would help me a lot to know where she is and give me a better clue as to when she is going to finish. But, it would be kinda selfish on my part since she does not now carry her cell when racing. Don’t blame her for that.

But then, she can take care of herself, and she feels the technology is kinda creepy. I sort of agree.

#3

When my ex did marathons (well, she still does marathons, we’re just not married anymore, so I don’t do this) she would have a shoe tag that would track her progress. For some races, I could go to the race website and register my cell phone with her shoe tag/name and get text updates at certain points. I always thought that was kinda neat, but I would have preferred it if the runner would have to OK it or pick the numbers for the updates to go to. I felt weird the first time I did it when she had no idea I was doing it (I just happened to find it when looking for info about the race after she had left for it). Also, I remember one time where the second to last update didn’t come though and I was sure she didn’t finish the marathon. It ended up showing up about an hour after she crossed the finish line.

As for any kind of location tracking service. Checking in on Four Square from time to time is about it. And honestly, I only to that for the A)Specials and B)My FourSquare account is tied to my small business and my small business’ website and facebook account so I like my customers to see me checking it and local restaurants, stores and other small businesses.

#4

Yep, they do track the athletes pretty well.

My Wife does Ironmans. And I volunteer for the events. I don’t always have access to a computer as things can get pretty hectic. The last Ironman she did, I volunteered for the tracking. A tent set up where folks could come and ask where their athlete was. They had one laptop… I went back to the hotel and got my netbook and helped as much as I could.

The cell phone tracking would be pretty cool for me. But I really won’t ask for my wife to carry one on a race. In fact I would advise against it. She already has too much to think about.

#5

Myself uses one too. But it’s for tracking vehicles that I own and want to make sure are actually at the worksites they’re supposed to be at. I got a couple of cheap GPS transponders for about $35 and stuck a SIM card in them and they’re good to go.

#6

I’d do this if I wanted to track my son’s whereabouts, but not let a spouse track me. If you want to know where I am, you can text.

#7

Both my husband and I occasionally do long road trips and it would be nice in case of an accident for tracking down the last known location.

In case fore example there is a detour - if I lose contact with mrAru he would know that I diverted from the planned route to the area the chainsaw murdered diverted all his victims to with a fake detour sign. Ok a bit of an exageration but shit happens and people get lost or there are accidents that cause traffic to divert to a different route. If you know someones last known location it can narrow down a search.