Yesterday, the Google geo development team released the Latitude GeoRSS feed into the wild through an API. I find it surprising that Google is opening up its users’ geo-data this fast. Here’s why:

In this very young geo-location space, Google is taking a major lead with Android. It turns them into one of the rare Web-based service that tracks directly users’ location. Android’s numbers aren’t tearing the roof off, but they are not bad either: In March, AdMob reported that Android phones experienced a 44% monthly growth are in the first months after launch, while the iPhone got a 88% monthly growth rate (however, I would like to compare the marketing spend of both companies for the launch, Apple obviously had more buzz).

The reason this is an advantage for Google is mobile advertising. The Web on mobile will probably become the most profitable advertising channel for brands and local advertisers alike. A plethora of ad networks are popping up in this space. However, while focusing on serving ads, those ad networks will have to buy the geo-data juice from data providers… Like Google: Latitude encourages mobile users’ to share their location voluntarily and regularly. Payday!

So why is Google releasing its geo-juice so fast?

We have tried to make this process as easy as possible, but we realize there is an entirely different set of people (you guys, the developers!) that want to do more interesting things with their location.

In other words, they are creating a developers’ ecosystem around their geo-data center, which creates many benefits:
- Start developing geo-advertising solutions on Google’s platform
- Develop good ideas for Adwords to integrate later
- Maybe develop an economy around Latitude (and Android?)
- Pioneer to become a leading geo data provider.

However, Google’s Achille’s heel in this story is its social networking potential: It’s close to being null. On Google, you search, you create documents, you watch videos, but Google doesn’t connect you with your close ones the way Facebook does. Their social graph algo is known to be a bit screwy. So they will need the help of somebody else to capture our location while we socialize on the go.

I have enabled the ’share your location publicly’. I don’t find it scary. I have the feeling that nobody really cares where I am anyway (except advertisers). And it’s not that accurate anyway. But I really like updating my gtalk with my location. Geekilicious!

Geo-blogger Glenn at the GIS user blog shares his new passion for the Google Phone and the Twitter apps for Android. Personally, I haven’t found an app on the market that provides a positive twittering experience, but I have a little tweak to share that combines two Android apps in a geolicious way!

First, install MyTracks, the GPS track recorder from the Google team. If you jog for example, use this app to record your track every time, and compare your performance through the Google Spreadsheets the app generates for you. Your phone just turned into a physical performance booster there

Once you got MyTracks up-and-running, install Twidroid, the twitter app for Android. If you are like me and you do not like the noise of Twitter apps, go in the settings and turn off the notifications from your friends.

Now that you have those two apps running on your phone, next time you do your jogging around the park, here is what you will do:
Record your track - Hit ’share maps with friends’ in MyTracks - Select Twidroid.

Once Google generated a map for your track, Twidroid sends it right away to your Twitter stream, notifying your followers of your performance of the day. You could be more precise in your tweet, by adding “san francisco, dolores park, jogging’ in your tweet for example, so that other tweeps jogging in the same area can find you.

I find this app combo to be super easy to use, and also a real life-changer if you have been looking to hook up with other people on Twitter around outdoors activities.

To push this combo a bit further, let’s say that you want to share this map with a friend that has a Facebook profile, but no Twitter account. No biggie. Just install the Selective Twitter Status app on Facebook. Next time you recorded a track you want to show to your Facebook friend, just send him a shout out the way I described above, and add #fb at the end of your tweet.

I have tested it and it works wonderfully well.

I think this is exactly why Twitter founders do not talk too much about their development strategies: As soon as an idea slips out of their mouth, it becomes the next Twitter we should all expect in the coming days.

This week end, Techcrunch reported on an interview Evan Williams had with Der Spiegel, where he mentions that Twitter could possibly delivers local breaking news to users based on their locations. Everybody is getting excited about it, as you can read in the comments of the Techcrunch article, but there is something that doesn’t fit in this story: Twitter doesn’t know where I am.

It is true, Twitter is not a geolocation company. It doesn’t track people based on their location and deliver services based on those locations. Yes, for ‘tweeps’ using smartphones, a latitude/longitude will be attached to all tweets transmitted to the phone. Other desktop apps will also attach your location to the tweets you send. On users’ profiles, you will see a location, but users would need to constantly update their feeds to make this location accurate in the here and now. I see this geolocation feature mainly as a way for tweeps to easily spot other tweeps.

Twitter has a problem: it is too noisy. I only use Twitter as a search engine, and for succinct communications with unknown others. Anyone who tracks their Thwirl, Tweetdeck and other app all day long to follow discussions is losing an incredible amount of time and productivity. Too many people use it has a way to grow an audience, following thousands of other tweeps, expecting follow-backs, with no intent to actually connect with the people they follow.

Anyhow, my point is that there is too much noise on Twitter. So if you couple this fact with the fact that Twitter would do a bad job delivering geo-targeted local news, you see how your stream would get even more polluted. Twitter is in no position to do this.

One interesting fact is that Twitter was early-funded by Union Square Ventures, the same VCs that early-funded Outside.in, the site that tracks the Web for news in your area. Now maybe it would be a good idea if Outside.in users could subscribe to the local news through their Twitter stream. But that’s a different story.

Finally, to spot geolocated Twitter feeds, there is Twinkle. It works great, and fits the need of the niche that is interested in getting geolocated news in their feeds.

Another way to see it is that users could turn on an alert whenever they want to get geolocated tweets in their streams. In that case, Twitter would need to have a GPS-enabled technology to track users on the go (a tracking system that doesn’t require sending tweets to be found). If Latitude is planning on opening up an API, I guess this is something doable…

With Hurricane Gustav shaking the tranquility of the Gulf of Mexico, a lot of people are structuring social media tools to facilitate the flow of information in this particular area.

On Twitter, Mark Mayhew - New Orleans local and heavy-user of the Web-based SMS platform - keeps track of all signs of climate change or threat.

Journalists from the Chicago Tribune are also implied full time in reporting on the moods of Hurricane Gustav.

All big media houses are actually covering the Hurricane, using traditional online tools, like Aljazeera on Youtube.

From individuals to corporations, everyone is implied in tracking and reporting any climate changes, ready to pull the emergency alarm at any time.

Another great way to follow the Hurricane is through Live News Camera, a video hub syndicating a variety of local and national TV networks. The Website has a dedicated page, the “Hurricane Center“, where visitors can search for local TV networks on a (Click2Map) map.

The concept of Live News Camera is made possible thanks to the technology we develop here at Click2Map, which makes it really easy to explore new ideas with Google Maps. In the case of Live News Camera, the map creator created 2 groups of markers (USA TV and World TV), but each group contains close to 70 markers total, and some markers contains several tabs. Because we make data management a breeze, map creators using Click2Map have the richest detail-oriented maps online.

Thumbs up to Live News Camera for offering such an original source of info in those times of climate uncertainty!

xavierv

On Twittervision, maps turn into social venues. Twittervision serves up real-time tweets from all over the world on a map. You can search twitterers by area code, look at tweets on a 3D earth map, check out the latest uploads from Flickr and from Youtube.



Twittervision is more than a fun gadget. I find the experience of attributing a place to a tweet extremely enriching. People waking up in Paris, looking for booze in Detroit, watching the sunset in Sydney… As of today, I know a lot of people who are still confused with Twitter. That is because Twitter is more of a back-end engine serving SMS than it is a social portal. There is no real structure or context around it: we can still see the central pillar of this soon-to-become SMS juggernaut.

Through maps, Twittervision adds a new dimension to the short-messaging experience. The same way a wine is best defined by its place of origin, 140 characters can say so much more when geographically contextualized.

The creepy thought that first came to mind was, it is officially possible to fly over the world and read people’s thoughts in real time. Tell that to your grandparents and they will think you’ve just lost your mind. On the other hand, maps compensate the space distortion effect of the Web. It provides a visual system to define my position relatively to those of others. Psychologically speaking, having reliable spatial marks is crucial for a person’s proprioception.

I don’t mean to get all analytical on Twittervision, I just wanted to share that georss is a really awesome component of our new social habits.

Twitter is now on a map, and Click2Map is on Twitter: Anybody interested in online maps, let’s mingle!

http://twitter.com/click2map