Google Latitude, the newly launched mobile and desktop friend-find application, has net over 1 million users in its first week. Reported via FierceMobileContent, the news came from Google’s vice president of engineering, Vic Gundotra during a panel at the Mobile World Congress in barcelona.
From FierceMobile:
“We believe that 2008 was the year mobile Internet took off,” Gundotra said, citing flat data plans, full web browsers and an improved user interface as the catalysts behind the takeoff. “The iPhone was the first browser to let you surf the real web. But the browser can do more than just browse content–it’s a platform for innovations.”
According to Gundotra, the modern, cutting-edge mobile browser must comprise three key elements: The HTML5 core language specification, application caching and geolocation tools. He illustrated his argument by showing for the first time in public a new Gmail concept for smartphones that capitalizes on app caching to enable users to browse and search through messages even when the network connection is disabled. Gundotra also demonstrated a mobile search solution integrated with location, voice recognition and the device accelerometer to query “weather,” automatically receiving a local forecast for the Barcelona area as determined via GPS.
Does anyone want to argue as to who will dominate the LBS industry in the future?
