Google knows where your house is

Today, Google has added geolocation to its Google Maps web software. Geolocation enables Google to determine your physical the location. It is supported on the latest version of Mozilla Firefox (3.5) and on browsers with the Google Gears plug in. When you visit Google Maps with a browser that supports geolocation, a button with a blue dot is shown among the controls on the left side of the map. Clicking that button will send your current location to Google.

It works pretty much as advertised, I was really surprised by the accuracy of the geolocation. It determined my location within several meters accuracy.

Google estimated my location within several meters accuracy.

Of course this is a nice feature for a maps application and kind of solves a chicken and egg problem. However, I think this feature will become a real killer feature – not in the realm of mapping – but in the realm of social networks. Knowing the location of your friends seems like a great application and can enable all kinds of new activities (for example, games that mix online and offline presence). Some web sites are experimenting with this, but require you to enter your location.

Naturally privacy is a concern here, but for example Facebook has shown that it if privacy controls are simple enough, people will use them to guard their privacy.

Among all the other features of HTML5, such as the @font-face CSS property and the native <video> tag and the debate concerning H.264 and Theora, this new API has not gotten the attention it deserves. I really like how Google and Mozilla are pushing the web forward by releasing and implementing such features.

As far as I know, Google Maps is the first major web site to implement geolocation for desktop browsers. (Geolocation has been available in the mobile client of Google Maps for quite some time now). I can only imagine that other web sites will soon follow. I am really looking forward to the new ideas people will implement. Some pretty interesting Facebook applications should pop-up very soon.