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Twitter Adding Location-Aware Tweets

by Terrence O'Brien on August 21, 2009 at 02:03 PM


Plenty of apps and Web sites have tried to add an element of locality to Twitter. But most of the solutions have been been pretty clumsy, requiring a user to either insert a link to longitude-latitude coordinates on Google Maps, or performing a search based on a user-provided ZIP code. Just announced features and application programming interfaces (APIs) from Twitter, though, will make these jury rigged solutions obsolete.

The new opt-in features will attach a longitude and latitude to all of said user's tweets. This will allow you to search for tweets coming from a particular location, or to find nearby tweeters, adding a whole other dimension to the Twitter social network. Twitter's Ryan Sarver wrote on Twitter's Development Talk Google Group that geolocation features will deliver "more meaningful and localized experiences to users."

No firm release date was mentioned, but we'd expect to see a location-aware Twitter sooner rather than later. Now, there is even less reason to use competitors like Brightkite, Loopt, and Latitude. [From: Mashable via DownloadSquad]

Tags: geolocation, gps, social networking, SocialNetworking, top, twitter

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