Google Latitude--Good or Bad?

So Google has launched yet another amazing application called Google Latitude. According to Google with Latitude you can:

• See where your friends are and what they are up to
  
• Quickly contact them with SMS, IM, or a phone call
  
• Control what your location is and who gets to see it

all from you phone or PC. So basically, when you open this program it shows you where your friends are--provided they can actually install Latitude on their phone and have added you as their friend. It's pretty neat and would probably come in handy in certain situations.


Let's say for instance you planned a surprise birthday party and everyone was at the house waiting for the celebrant to arrive. You get a few false alarms and whoever is with the celebrant has to sneak away and call or text you and let you know they're coming. With Latitude you probably won't get any false alarms or have to sneak away because you'll know where they are.

Or say you're a parent wondering where your teenage daughter was. She won't be able to lie to you and say she was at her friends house the whole night while she was actually at a concert. And if she decides to "hide" herself, all the more reason you know she's lying to you.

Now I'm guessing whoever made this program up probably didn't want to use it just to know where his/her buddies are--hell no! For arguments sake let's say it was a dude. He was probably thinking, "Gosh, I'm sure spending a lot of time here at Google. I wonder what my girlfriend is up to. She better not be messing around my back. I wish there was a way I could know where she is at all times. Oh, I know!" BOOM--and Google Latitude was born. He was probably friends with the guy that created the "Incognito" window option on Google Chrome. "I wish there was a way I could look at porn so that my girlfriend won't know. Oh, I know." BOOM--and Incognito was born. Uh...back to my point. So now boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, booty-callers and booty-shakers(?) can all keep tabs on each other. I can totally picture this on a sitcom where one girl is using Latitude to see where her man is only to find that her best friend is at the same place. Oh boy!

Here's a few pics of it on my phone (sorry for the image quality)...

Mark's definitely in Medellin, Columbia...Medellin!!!























...zoomed in...
























I took this pic at work. It says it's within 800 meters of where I actually am. Ehh...maybe. I'm probably a minute from there by car and I'm definitely not in Palo Alto.

So what do you guys think? Good or Bad? How would you use Google Latitude?