Twitter Might Start Adding Comments & Location-Based Information to Each Tweet
At the 140 Twitter Conference yesterday, Alex Payne, Twitter's API lead told Robert Scoble that Twitter might soon add location-based information to every tweet. Currently, users can set a location on their profile, but individual tweets are not geo-coded in any way. If Twitter did indeed add a geo-references to every tweet, then that would open up the door to a wealth of new possibilities for developers. Suddenly, for example, it would be possible to develop an application that could pull in every tweet ever made from a certain restaurant or bar.
In addition, Payne also told Scoble that Twitter will add a new feature similar to Friendfeed's 'likes,' as well as comments. On Friendfeed, users can 'like' any comment to push it back up to the top of the page. Twitter's current system of 'favorites'/stars is probably not a heavily used feature (something Twitter's own FAQ acknowledges) and it is hard to see why one would favorite a post except as a replacement for bookmarking. The data about which tweets were starred is also not surfaced in any meaningful way.
Comments would be a very interesting addition to Twitter, as they could basically constitute a replacement for the use of the @ reply. Other micro-blogging services like Plurk or the new defunct Rejaw used comments and they make it a lot easier to keep track of conversations.
Scoble also got a chance to chat with Anamitra Banerji, who is actually working on Twitter's commercial products. Banerji confirmed that Twitter is indeed trying to stay away from advertising based revenue models and is looking to sell data and features to businesses instead. Twitter believes that consumers are not very likely to buy premium features.
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I would prefer replies/mentions stay as they are. The location based stuff as an option would be fun.
All three would be interesting additions to be fair...particularly the locational info, the possibilities there are awesome.
loc info will be interesting, especially when travelling
I like both ideas. Makes more sense to me to add a comment inline.
NORMAL COMMENTING!!! YAY FINALLY!! It's about time Twitter did this. It doesn't have to change the @ reply system, but at least when you see an individual tweet you can have the option to see the @ replies/mentions associated with it all listed underneath. And it can be a real conversation instead of having to figure out and backtrack like a damn game of Who's On First.
The tweet is coming from inside the restaurant, table 5!
Talk about on-demand customer service. Tweet from the location, people are alerted to the issue immediately. Nip it. Would also continue to move twitter to the defacto online commenting platform.
Interesting developments, indeed. Threaded comments would make it more blog-like, less IM.
@mikelizun
http://www.twitter.com/mikelizun
This is disastrous to say the least, whatever little privacy was left may completely disappear with this move, hopefully twitter should be smart enough to allow users to control whether or not their geo-locations should be shared with others, otherwise this will cause a much bigger backlash than the issue they created with @replies.
This information may no doubt come in pretty handy to developers and marketing guys, however it should not come at the cost of twitter users.
The comment feature would be nice, as long as it doesn't impede the existing flow of the UI... otherwise, it's facebook :)
I have always thought it would be nice to have the ability to see replies within the same frame, without having to jump from page to page. Basically, a way to expand a tweet to see further information.
would this mean that tweeps could physically follow tweeters? (i.e., stalking?)... and/or target their marekting messages more finely and acutely?..not sure if I'm hip to that concept...
"likes" already exist in Laconi.ca instances such as Identi.ca. Nice to see that Twitter is following behind. With comments on top of that, Twitter will have the same system as Friendfeed and Facebook.
Microblogging with location metadata is in the air for Laconi.ca too - I'm eagerly awaiting it as I'm a fan of Brightkite and not many of my friends are there. Brightkite implemented microblogging with location metadata a long time ago - I wonder why it has not been taken up more. With other microblogging services adding location metadata, they are being now robbed of their competitive advantage...
So ... Twitter becomes FriendFeed?
I for one hope they don't add commenting. I like Twitter's "flat" waterfall structure. What they should do instead is collect up a thread for display when people click "in reply to." That would help people make sense of conversations when they come in late. Same could be done for people when they click on a hashtag.
Sounds an awful lot like features Brightkite has had for over a year now.
I would not have any problems with ads, when they are not endlessly repeated and when +- useful to me.
I really would like to have images integrated in Twitter, they could copy this from FF as well
Location info for tweets can be made by using http://Sent.Fm (Sent From) which can work like this: http://sent.fm/seattle+wa. GPS coordinates can even be attached to your tweets through a short url sent from your iPhone or when tweeting from the http://sent.fm website by dragging a pin to your exact location.
Humans for 95 percent of their existence had little to no privacy - applications like twitter or facebook are funny in their sense that they are returning us to the primeval or primitive lifestyle involving everyone knowing everything about everybody all of the time. people can opt out - surely twitter isnt forcing you to include location, but many will opt in. It's human nature.
hmmm... dont want, dont want, dont want. oh well. ;)
Posted by: Jeremy Toeman
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May 27, 2009 6:19 PM
Probably not the greatest of news for Brightkite right?
The location tag on tweets will be an amazing addition. Thanks for reporting this cool piece of news. Go RWW!
I like the idea of geo-tagging tweets, but I vehemently oppose the conversion of @ replies into comments. What's wrong with the "Favorite" feature? Just rename it to "Like" and we're good to go.
I sincerely hope they decide to scrap comments.
I'm not particularly fussed about the geo-based stuff. I can definitely see the appeal of comments as long as they neatly run below a given tweet, like on Friendfeed.
But 'likes' is and always has been a dumb feature. Just see how it's used on FF and especially Facebook, where people 'like' things like news of plane crashes and Mike Tyson's daughter dying. What Twitter needs is a 'share' button. If you have like, you need dislike, too. Like and share are not the same thing.
They'd be better off keeping favourites as is, making that your 'share', and pushing that data on to the network. Sure, rename it, but there are millions of saved favourites already out there - why dump all that data?
I cant wait for the geo-targeting!!!
The comments thing is going a bit too far.. i think Twitter is starting to lose its simplicity that made it soo popular in the first place..
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Tweets for the most part are still pretty broad and specifically the trends. Twitter can really be a better tool by getting as focused and targeted as possible. The real value I think can come by having targeted conversations that show location, etc.
Definitely loving the comments feature. Makes it is so much easier to keep track of conversation. Love the 'like' feature as well! Use that a lot in facebook.
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If you don't want to wait for Twitter to add geotagging to every message you can start using Twittori right now. It is a mashup that achieves this feature by adding a very tiny URL to each tweet. An iPhone app is waiting to be approved too and will likely be available in the next days. Here is the web sites URL http://www.twittori.com
I like the location based service brightkite, and it lets me control my 'location information' and privacy easily.