So Google has released their new Latitude location service, and I have to say I am kind of excited. Now location services aren’t anything new, Yahoo’s FireEagle was released last year and BrightKite has been around for a while, but Latitude is the first example of location services with indivdual controls based on your existing social network (FireEagle being completely independant of your social connections and BrightKite requiring you to make a new one).

So why all the huff and puff? Locations services are bringing reality back into the internet. When I first started “using” the internet one of the greatest appeals was that I could connect with people with similar interests no matter where they were. For certain things this still holds true… for really geeky things, the likely hood that I will find a Ruby on Rails developer in my housing community isn’t particularly high, so it is great the internet is there to connect me with my friends in Austin and Las Vegas. There are some things however that are so common or are better done in person, take photography for example. It is much easier to discuss taking photos when you can do real life examples or sit down with someone and share tips on gear.

Now meetups and jellys and everything are awesome, but a lot of times you don’t want to have to setup a formal event or group just to do a activity. With location services you can do more on the fly things with your friends, keeping track of their proximity and status. Now your reasoning doesn’t always have to be so alturistic as a photography meetup, maybe you just want to get hammered at a bar or go see a movie. With location services you can see who is around, who is doing what and even figure out where is the central point to meet based on current location.With the tie into your cellular phone for tracking, you don’t even need to remember to update it, it all just happens. You live your life and just do what you do.

It basically boils down to the more you are informed, the more you can do. I am sure we will see a plethora of location service apps that can do things like:

• schedule impromtu meetups based on a trigger of a count of people being withing a radius (example: send an IM to everyone if more then 10 people are withing a 10 block radius and are marked available).
• send out alerts when your best friends come are near
• create a meeting place and then give you appromiate arrival times of yoru friends based on their current location
• find central meeting locations based on current location
• eliminate “where you at?” phone calls
• Find the nearest X (dentist, doctor, car repair) in an emergency

Now with the control that Google ads to show different levels of information, even a fake address if you like, to different friends, I think the “big brother” stigma of being constantly under observation is one less thing you have to fear. Embarassed you are at your ex’s for that midnight booty call? Just lie and say you are a church. Don’t want your boss knowing exactly where you are? Say that he can only see your region.

I am really excited about location services and I think we are finally tieing the internet back into our real lives… it has finally come full circle!