Google Latitude goes gamification?

By Per Pettersson / 2012/02/20 / Location Based Services / 3 Comments

Is Google Latitude about to add gamification and, as usual, giving it a go without talking about it?

It’s like with Apple. Loose a phone, gain tons of attention in social media and blogs. I’m not saying it’s wrong – it’s just a bit hard for us early adopters that want to give it a go and give it a go yesterday. Engadget wrote yesterday about Google Latitude and this makes me both happy and angry at the same time.

Google Latitude with the leaderboard, image from Engadget.com

Why am I both happy and angry when I read this? First off, I’m a big fan of Foursquare. I’m checking in, exploring and have my friends there. But I’ve migrated almost everything I can to Google. Documents, e-mail, my calendars, photos etc. And I love the fact that I have it all in one account. If Google decides to enter the game of location based services, I will probably soon migrate to this as well. Because I can’t use multiple services. That’s taking all the fun out of it. I don’t want to check in using Path and connect it to Foursquare and then open Facebook and Google+ to check in there as well. Today I’m fine with Foursquare. But Google usually wins me over. And this makes me angry. Because I’m happy with what I’ve got.

What are your thoughts about this?

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About Per Pettersson

Per Pettersson works as SEO and Social Media Specialist at Search Integration in Stockholm, Sweden and have been working with the web and digital strategies since 2001. Two of his passions is finding out searchers intent and how social media impacts search engine optimisation.
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  • http://wernertoniste.se/ Werner Töniste

    Everything is sooner or later going to be Googlified. It is kind of sad. I really like Foursquare and I don’t actually like Google doing and becoming everything on earth! In the end you will buy an iPhone or whatever android crap and download one app. The Google app. But as you say. I will probably also move to G-latitude just to collect all the futures to one place. 

    • https://plus.google.com/u/0/101132975962082847483/about Per Pettersson

      I like competition. Without competition, no push to move further and work on new features – but Google is Google. It’s hard to compete with. Especially if they don’t allow Foursquare to interact with Google+.

  • Anders Sporring

    It’s the natural step for them! :)