Don’t get me wrong, GPS is great. It save lives if you are lost at sea, helps out when looking for the nearest Starbucks or lets you know where your stolen car is. However, while it might help place that missile in just the right spot. The idea that we need to broadcast where we are 24 hours a day is not only questionable from a security and safety point of view, it is now another way to further pollute the Web.
Some folks like Brightkite announcements flooding social media services like FriendFeed is not incredibly irritating. It’s not like knowing where you are every five or ten minutes is earth shattering news that we all need to know. If anything there are times when this kind of pollution makes me want to just close any window I have open to social media providers who support these location based services.
The fact that things like Brightkite can drive me; and many others, to forcibly filter out this irritating self-importance is in my opinion an infringement of my space and time spent with friends. People forever talk about how irritating it is to be forced to listen to people incessantly talking on their cell phones at a level where everyone for blocks around them can hear. Well this idea that people want to know where you are whenever you feel like sharing that information is of the same level.
I once wrote on my