Where Did That Tweet Come From?

The stalker community (and hopefully more normal Twitter users) is rejoicing a post on the Twitter blog by co-founder Biz Stone describing a new application-program interface that will allow users of the social-networking service to determine where tweets are being posted from.

Stone said the API would be released to platform developers before becoming part of the Twitter site.

He wrote:

We’re gearing up to launch a new feature that makes Twitter truly location-aware. A new API will allow developers to add latitude and longitude to any tweet. Folks will need to activate this new feature by choice, because it will be off by default and the exact location data won’t be stored for an extended period of time. However, if people do opt-in to sharing location on a tweet-by-tweet basis, compelling context will be added to each burst of information.

For example, 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. 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.

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