Twitter Local launch

If you use a social media tool like Twitter on a regular basis, here's something that could change how you use it. I think it could change Twitter from something you use to talk to friends, to something you use to find friends.

Twitter Local lets you subscribe to any 'tweets' that come from a geographical area. Have a look and see if it works. In theory, and if people use right, you could find new anything from a place near you (news, people, services, etc).

Comments

[Graham]

This is interesting for following breaking news stories. Although it doesn't seem to pick anything up from Lhasa or Tibet or Harare. Some news was breaking on Twitter from Lhasa, so I'd expect to see that show up.

[Trevor]

It works... sort of. :)

If I create feed of people from "Brighton" -- I don't show up because I've set my location to "Brighton, UK". Although, cleverly, if I create a feed of "Brighton, UK" it also finds "Brighton, England" (and, presumably, any other "Brighton"s in the UK) although it then doesn't find tweets from users who have set their location to just "Brighton".

Do I win a prize for most uses of the word "Brighton" in a paragraph?

[Jaz Cummins]

How interesting. Just found a few new people to follow in my new hood - so by "Shoreditch".

Seems a bit hit and miss though. I've subscribed to a London feed and a postcode one for work...not sure if they're just going to get annoying!

Great idea though.