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'Tweet Your Location' From Twitter Next Move in Location-Based Blogging

by Amar Toor on March 11, 2010 at 09:30 AM

Like moths drawn to a flame, the titans of the social networking world have all begun implementing various location-based features into their platforms. Now, following the recent news of Facebook's upcoming location-based status updates, Twitter has officially thrown its hat in the ring by allowing users to "Tweet With Your Location."

While developers have long been able to tweet their locations with the Twitter API (Application Program Interface), it now seems that the option has been introduced to all members of the Twittersphere. As TheNextWeb reports, the feature allows your followers to pinpoint the precise location from which you tweet, with the help of Google Maps. Should you choose to enable it, a little pin will pop up underneath your tweets, as well as beneath those in your stream. When you click on the pin, a small Google Maps window will pop up alongside the text, mapping out exactly where the tweet was first posted. A few users actually spotted the tweet-mapping option on Tuesday before Twitter decided to suddenly take it down. Yesterday, though, the company appeared to have rolled it out officially -- just in time, not coincidentally, for the SXSW festival, and all the location-based hype that's been building up around it.

As cool as this trend is, there will always be a certain lingering worry about what could happen if the Mark David Chapmans of the world figure out how to use location-based technology in some deviant way. But in most cases, the decision to publicize your whereabouts still rests on -- well -- you. Personally, we think it makes perfect sense for a site that prides itself on rapid-fire discourse and Zen-like goldfish memory to add this extra dimension to its real-time catalog. [From: TheNextWeb]

Tags: GoogleMaps, gps, location-based, LocationBasedServices, mosoco, SocialNetworking, top, twitter, web

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