ZenTracker lets you keep tabs on your kid's location via Google Latitude
That’s the question that ZenTracker, a location-based service built on top of Google Latitude, helps to answer. The site, a side project of 25 year old Alexis Arquilliere, offers a way for parents to track their child’s location and, more specifically, be alerted if they stray outside of a designated perimeter, such as the home or their school.
Paris-based Arquilliere, a recent student and a previous product marketing intern with Google, launched an experimental version of ZenTracker a few weeks ago, based on the limited public API of Latitude. He’s since expanded its functionality, however, following Google’s announcement at its recent I/O developer conference that Latitude would support Oauth, enabling a user’s location data to be shared securely and privately between Google’s servers and that of a third-party.
Revenue-wise, while most of ZenTracker’s features are free, the actual alerts only get sent out to premium subscribers. In other words, it’s a freemium play. A subscription costs $8.95 per-month, which includes 25 SMS messages, although more can be purchased.
ZenTracker is thus far entirely bootstrapped – Arquilliere currently has a ‘day job’ – but it’s hoped that the service can get the traction needed to take it further.