Comments on: Twitter location: Google’s Latitude can stay put.

By: Julie

Julie — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:34:13 +0000

Completely agree with this post. It took my awhile to grasp the concept of Twitter (coming over from being a total Facebook addict in college). I realize that there’s a sense of responsibility to my company that I am representing on Twitter and my own personal reputation. I have to think carefully before I just spit out those 140 characters. I’ve come to have a better sense of what people will respond to and what people will retweet, but I am still learning! Thanks for the advice!

By: Leili McKinley

Leili McKinley — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:52:27 +0000

Ryan,

Whether this kind of application would be adopted depends on demographics and strategy. As you know not everything is for everybody.

I think people in small rural towns who know all 30 people in their local grocery store when they walk in really don’t need to look at their phone to figure out who they are connected to.

I think that young techies think everyone else is looking at their phone constantly…I have yet to see anyone in the frozen food section checking to see if anyone else is in the store for a “surreptitious meet up.”

I think that constantly broadcasting your location speaks to your narcissism. Why should I care if you are at Starbucks for the 7th time today? Even if I “follow” you? Because I should report you to the caffeine police?

And I think that some people over exaggerate their own importance. What makes you think that human behavior will change so much that virtual strangers will suddenly become real friends because they twitter follow each other? If you have mutual 3000 followers, you will not know them all. Social norms still apply. If you walk up to someone (because now we find we are located in the same shop for instance) and they do not know you, your probably going to get a cool reception. Even if you say “we follow each other”.

Last, I think that many of these kinds of applications will have a narrow audience. Most people complain now about the time it takes to manage their social networking. These kinds of things just add to the information overload. But if you can make a business work around it (which you are trying to do) then hopefully it will be of use.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:28:44 +0000

Leili, I think there are two forms of location when it comes to twitter…

First, is the explicit “i am here” broadcast which you are talking about. Twitter has become a personal publishing / broadcast platform and broadcasting your location to facilitate serendipitous meetups is a valuable piece of the platform. Check out BrightKite and how they push their updates to Twitter.

Secondly, and maybe more important, is the ability to add context to each message. If there was a separate field for each message that says this message was broadcast from this location it then allows other apps to filter down all the public tweets by a location. This allows you to understand what the buzz is directly around you and adds a whole new, interesting dimension to how people use Twitter. Currently people are hacking it together to make it work, but if it was core to the platform it would really be transformative.

What do you think?