There are plenty of software in Google play which can be used to locate your phone when it is lost/stolen. There is a daemon running in the phone and you contact that daemon through internet over a web site.
There are two ways of doing this. The daemon can send the details like IP to a server periodically and the server can use those details to contact the phone. But this approach has a higher overhead.
Instead there should be another way to do this. In Google play (Earlier Market) a user can select an application and the device using web interface and the relevant software is automatically downloaded to the phone which is properly configured with the same Google account. How do I mimic this behaviour with a custom application.
As an example I am trying to develop an android application that can associate with a google account and then I should be able to connect to the phone over a web site given the Google credentials.