Type of site | Social Networking, Location-based service |
---|---|
Available in | Multilingual |
Predecessor(s) | Dodgeball |
Successor(s) | Google+ (2013-2017) Google Maps (2017-present) |
Owner | |
URL | latitude |
Commercial | Yes |
Registration | Required |
Launched | February 5, 2009 |
Current status | Discontinued – August 9, 2013 |
Google Latitude was a location-aware feature of Google Maps, developed by Google as a successor to its earlier SMS-based service Dodgeball. Latitude allowed a mobile phone user to allow certain people to view their current location. Via their own Google Account, the user's cell phone location was mapped on Google Maps. The user could control the accuracy and details of what each of the other users can see — an exact location could be allowed, or it could be limited to identifying the city only. For privacy, it could also be turned off by the user, or a location could be manually entered. Users had to explicitly opt into Latitude and were only able to see the location of those friends who had decided to share their location with them.[1]
On July 10, 2013, Google announced plans to shut down Latitude, and it was discontinued on August 9, 2013.[2] After the feature moved to Google+ in between, Google incorporated Latitude's location sharing feature into Google Maps in March 2017.[3][4]