GPS Obsessed

Just last month Twitter launched its Geolocation API which allows developers to create application features which use add location information to tweets. It’s no surprise that a plethora of developers have already incorporated the feature into their respective works and Twitter has decided to take advantage of this.

Yesterday on the Twitter blog, the company revealed that it had acquired Mixer Labs, creator of GeoAPI, a database of over 16 million points of interest (and a variety of other tools) that developers can use to add geospatial information to tweets.

Twitter hasn’t revealed the financial terms of the deal.

GeoMeme is a great Twitter mashup that allows users to follow and share real-time local Twitter trends on a Google Map.  Created by Bob Hitching, GeoMeme grabs tweets from locations around the world from a variety of iPhone Twitter apps.  It then separates tweets from each location into positive tweets on the left-hand side, and negative tweets on the right-hand side.  Hitching has plans to incorporate the Twitter Geolocation API into GeoMeme once it’s released, enabling even more tweets to appear on the map.

Twitter has just become my favorite location-aware application!  In a blog post today, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone revealed that a location API will soon be made available for developers to use in their applications.  Soon after, geolocation will be added directly into the Twitter platform enabling the addition of latitude and longitude coordinates to any tweet.

Just for the privacy concerned, Stone says that the feature will be turned off by default so users will have to turn it on manually.  Furthermore, Twitter won’t hold onto any location data for longer than necessary-though exactly how long the company will have it isn’t known.

I can’t help but wonder how this will affect developers of Twitter applications already utilizing location.  Currently, location is derived from whatever we happen to share in our profile.  While the new location API will help make established location-based Twitter apps better, will the eventual incorporation of location into the Twitter platform itself spell the end for these types of apps?

Whatever the case may be, developers will have access to the location API before it’s added to Twitter so they’ll have a bit of a head start.

I also wonder how this change will affect other location-based social networks such as Loopt and Whrrl.  Will Twitter become the all-powerful location-based application that destroys all others?