The SXSW event featured a speech delivered by vice president of consumer products at Google, Marissa Mayer, noting the importance of location her company is envisaging.  The VP admits that Google has not played its cards well when dealing with the product line, as some of the existing products should be integrated into ‘core technologies’.

“Some of our products should be features, like Latitude and Google Hotpot,” she said. “One of the things we need to do more is merge these products into core technologies, consolidate into Maps or Places. There’s probably more than one product [Latitude and Hotpot could fit into] but we still need to condense somewhat.”

Google admits that the company is somehow dependent on customer support in order to offer accurate services and not create tense situations. In 2010 Nicaragua refused to withdraw troops from a disputed parcel of land along its border with Costa Rica after Google Maps wrongly labeled it Nicaraguan territory.

Google sees location as being central for the future of Google products, considering that over 150 million people use Google Maps. Location-based services, especially for mobile devices, is the central point of development for Google, especially location-based services including new releases of Maps for mobile, check-ins, deals, augmented reality and ‘contextual discovery’ explained by Google as organising information, reviews and deals around a given location.

Prior to developing location products, Google has do deal first with privacy issues from the last couple of years around its Street View service that caused nuisance and triggered legal action in several countries in Europe and Israel. Although Mayer emphasizes that the company is currently improving technical tools for protecting privacy , such as blurring license plates, people faces and so on, there are major lapses that will agitate things even more.