Twitter is working on a new feature for its mobile app that would include the users’ location so that people would know who are tweeting nearby.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, the new feature called “Nearby” will display the latest tweets from people you are following -- and even those who you don’t -- that is in close proximity. The feature is already being tested and has been functional on those who had allowed Twitter to access, use and see their location.
The trial of “Nearby” is a part of the social networking company effort to attract more users to share their location, thus making the service more locally relevant -- like iPhone app Loopt Mix, the check-in app Foursquare, and the activity tracker CitySense.
It can also be utilized as an advertising means where companies can have a more precise targeting ability.
Three years ago, Twitter has started allowing tweeters to include their location to their tweets. However, the feature is considered optional because users can turn it off.
As the company tries to organize millions of tweets into something locally significant for each user – and that is the problem with the “Discover” tab and search function, it comes up with this “Nearby” feature.
A spokesperson for Twitter declined to comment on the new feature, but claimed that the company’s experiments always lead to only one thing, and that is to provide a better user experience.
Brian Wieser, an analyst at the Pivotal Research group, highly praised the test. He told WSJ, “Maybe they’ll come across something that will be incrementally interesting to some advertisers.”
When you try looking at the “Nearby” screen on your smartphone, you will see a timeline of a recent tweet, mapping the tweeter’s current location on the lower half of the screen and a map that shows the place of the tweeter through a blue dot is shown on the other half.
