jaiku

It seems some of that nifty Jaiku tech is finding its way into other Google offerings.

Google today announced 'My Location', which has an unfortunately-windows-ish kinda ring to it, software which "...uses cell tower ID information to provide users with their approximate location, helping them determine where they are, what's around them, and how to get there."

Yeah, cool.

The press release also states "This approximation is anonymous, as Google does not gather any personally identifiable information or associate any location data with personally identifiable information as part of the My Location feature." Okay, maybe not personal information, but if there's gonna be some ad revenue to be had here, Google's gonna snoop in on something (ie. does the owner of this handset prefer Pizza or Chinese?).

I would love to try this sucka out, but I'm in Canada, and apparently Google doesn't consider us a valid location ("You current location is temporarily unavailable"). Not a real surprise. So, if there are any folks out there that want to submit a little review of the working app, send me an email: jordan[at]fandroid.net.

Good read here analyzing Google's recent acquisition of microblogging goodness Jaiku and how it may play into Android and Google's mobile strategy.

The author focuses on the location awareness built into Jaiku. Originally this functionality made use of cell tower triangulation APIs on the Nokia S60 - although obviously GPS would be easier and more direct - and would also serve up the phone's status (In a Meeting, etc.).

As this blogger, Jonathan Mulholland, puts it so well:

If you’re a user of Jaiku, or Twitter for that matter, look back through some of your posts and you’ll see that you’ve built an outline profile of your life. Reading through my Twitter and Jaiku pages it’s reasonable easy to deduce that I’m a Mac geek, a fan of American TV dramas, enjoy listening to Radiohead, suffer from occasional migraines, like Indian food etc etc. Now consider what value is added by a service that knows where you are and also whether it’s appropriate to contact you (through your mobile phone) as you post updates.

Kinda scary, honestly.