It’s not very often that I came across a location-based startup or application to profile that originates in Canada. However, Montreal seems to be emerging as a startup hub in this country, very recently spawning a place-oriented Twitter application called TwitArea.
Nothing more than a Firefox plugin and a simple website, TwitArea places a small Insert Place button under the left-hand side of the Twitter update box. If you’re at a restaurant, bar or business that you happen to like and want to recommend to your friends, you just click on the button. A pop-up box appears that allows you to search for a business name or general term like ‘pizza’ in your location. You have to enter your location manually, but for the purposes of the app it’s not that much of a hassle.
Eventually though, I think that TwitArea should implement the W3C Geolocation specification so that the app determines your location automatically. That way the app can narrow down its search parameters automatically without requiring any user input.
For the time being though, you have to search. Once you find the place you’re looking for, just hit the Tweet This button. I learned the hard way that the pop-up box doesn’t close by itself. When I tried it yesterday I accidentally sent about 6 identical tweets in a row before I realized that after you hit the button, you have to manually close the window and then update the tweet.
The short ‘przd.com’ URL links to a page on the TwitArea site where you’ll find the business contact information, mapped location, and other details. Other users can also vote or Praize a business up or down and you’ll be able to see a running tally of community votes on the side.
TwitArea pulls business listings from Yellowpages.ca in Canada as well as a variety of American local search providers including Yellowbook and Localeze. It was created by local search company Praized Media.