Google has launched Latitude, a new Web service that tracks your location on Google Maps and shares it with your friends and family. The mobile social landscape is already quite crowded despite its youth and (presently) low demand from users. The reason for all the excitement is simple: in addition to being really neat, it’s seen as the holy grail for advertisers.

Latitude in its current form isn’t earth-shaking for Google’s users or its advertisers. In face, more sophisticated platforms are currently available. The exciting part of the Latitude announcement is that it represents the first step in Google’s iterative approach to making its ads and its users geo-aware.

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