
Google’s Marissa Mayer Checks-in On Latitude, Social And Local - churp
http://blogs.forbes.com/tomiogeron/2011/05/05/googles-marissa-mayer-checks-in-on-latitude-social-and-local/
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Cherian_Abraham
I dont claim to be half as smart as the minds at Google, but I have got to
ask.

Why wade in after Foursquare and Facebook in to Check-Ins especially when it
is fast being phased out, rejected as smartphones gets adopted by the masses?

Google can really drive location adoption and awareness if they wanted to.
Jumping in to a niche, and that too one that has the broader public shying
away from, is that the smart thing to do?

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phlux
Google is an advertising and marketing company. Only.

By developing a location aware service they can target you with relevant ads
from services in your proximity.

The creation of a social networking service would allow this -- though I think
its too late for google. What they should do is build the engine that facebook
then uses to deliver the ads to their users, then rev-share...

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T_S_
It's too bad if Google really thinks that way. Seems to me the original key to
their success was providing incredible value to their users. That got the
user's attention and ... eventually ... monetization.

In the mobile space, the ways to add "incredible value" to the user are only
just being conceived. Sure adding the location data silo to apps is a plus.
And it seems the entire planet is fixated on social. But I don't see
businesses competing for my business in any significant way inside the same
app...yet.

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phlux
I totally agree with you, look at my post here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2518927>

