Soon after announcing some tweaks to way it lets users share information, popular microblogging service Twitter is adding some more functionality and this time it is geolocation.
What is interesting about Twitter’s geolocation is that it will not only allow users to display what location they are tweeting from within the main Twitter homepage but it will also allow developers to add this to third party applications.
This means that every tweet will come with its own latitude and longitude but this is something that users will be able to switch on or off at their choosing.
This opens up data discovery within Twitter from realtime search and what people you follow are saying to a whole new field whereby data and people can be discovered by neighbourhood, country or area code.
“With accurate, tweet-level location data you could switch from reading the tweets of accounts you follow to reading tweets from anyone in your neighborhood or city—whether you follow them or not,” said Twitter co-founder Biz Stone on the official Twitter blog.
“It’s easy to imagine how this might be interesting at an event like a concert or even something more dramatic like an earthquake. There will likely be many use cases we haven’t even thought of yet which is part of what makes this so exciting.”
Developers could use this to develop Twitter-based apps for products and services discovery, which may lead to Twitter’s golden opportunity of revenue through advertising if tweets can be sorted by choice through finding services without disturbing the normal enjoyment of one’s Twitter stream.
