Google has released the Public Location Badge, which allows users to publish geographic information to their blog automatically whenever they go somewhere. The badge is powered by Google Latitude.

If you're unfamiliar with Google Latitude, it is a feature of Google Maps that when enabled, shows your friends your current location wherever you are if you have given it permission to do so.

The Public Location Badge will allow you to share your Google Latitude location in two ways:

1. Use the badge's standard embed code

2. Use a KML or JSON feed to create a custom experience in your own application

To add the code snippet, you can click the "add to Blogger" button or copy and paste the code into an HTML/Javascript gadgetthat you can add from your layout tab on Blogger.

Users can choose to share only their city-level location or the best available one. If enabled, the location is publicly available to everyone. Users can't limit where and with whom info is shared through the badge.

You have to be a Latitude user to enable the badge. "We made it easy to customize the type of badge that you want on your blog and let you choose between showing either your best available location or just the city that you're currently in," says Rick Klau on Google's Blogger Buzz Blog.

If you want to see how the badge looks in action, Klau refers readers to Danny Sullivan's Daggle blog. You can see Danny's location in the right-hand column of that blog.

Google also introuced the Google Talk Location Status app (in beta), which shows  your contacts in Google Talk or Gmail Chat where you are.