Twitter and Maps – Locating your followers one tweet at a time

Twitter announced the Geotagging API back in August and officially released it by the end of November Twitter applications like Birdfeed, Seesmic Web, Foursquare, Gowalla, Twidroid, Twittelator Pro already support this API.

Three weeks after of the official Geotagging API release I made a quick search looking for applications that use a combination of Twitter and maps. Note that these applications are not necessarily using the Geotagging API. My main interest was to find integrations of twitter and location/maps. SOME of the results are attached to the end of these notes. Note I didn’t try them or endorse here any of those applications. I hope you can leave a comment if you are using any of them.

Looking for answers

After a few days of looking at my word processor’s empty page I remained only with questions (and very few answers). Instead of continuing to look for some insights, let me share with you what I’m trying to understand, may be together we can come up with some logic.

1. If we consider that the reason to put a business, or invest time in development, is to generate revenue, how are those companies going to monetize this map integration?
2. I can understand the business side of collecting information for data mining, but what is the actual added value for a user to see tweets in a map?
3. Twitter makes two things clear. The first is that you can “delete all location data”, and the second is that there is no guarantee the information will be removed from all 3rd party application’s. What about some privacy standards? Are you aware that 3rd parties are storing, using and maybe selling your location? It might be useful to control where employees are twitting from…
4. Asking for business models for applications around twitter is already difficult. Considering the costs of putting a location application, including maps, data transfer and other LBS components, do you have an idea how to monetize this integration?

As I mentioned, I have many other questions. Once you get bored of seeing windows of tweets opening over a map give me a call. May be we can use these features to develop something useful to the users and profitable for the ones investing the efforts.

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Some of the Apps that integrates Twitter and Location / Maps

Following are some of the Twitter + maps apps I found. The challenge was to describe them in 140 characters or less and where possible I added the twitter ID of the developers.

Feel free to “cut and tweet”

Continue reading and see the full list of Twitter and Maps app here

Add-on for Browsers

RT @schapsis TwitArea Tweet the address, phone number and location of any place worth tweeting in seconds http://bdnooz.com/i2n

Download

RT @schapsis TwitterLocal is going 2 be smply an Adobe AIR based application that allows u 2 filter Tweets by location http://bdnooz.com/s0d

Websites (Mashup)

RT @schapsis Boarding helps U find other stranded travelers by simply tweeting #boarding along w/ yr airport code http://bdnooz.com/4dt

RT @schapsis GeoChirp helps you search for people Twittering for specific things in a specific area. http://bdnooz.com/7ua

RT @schapsis Geo.ly is integrated w/ twttr – just tweet an address 2 @geoly & receive a tweet back w/ yr map url http://bdnooz.com/pkg

RT @schapsis GeoTwitter The most recent updates are fetched from the public timeline and mapped http://bdnooz.com/zez

RT @schapsis Happn.in | Local Twitter Trends – Twitter with a local focus http://bdnooz.com/ktf

RT @schapsis MyTweetMap|PLace your friend tweets on a map http://bdnooz.com/j7u

RT @schapsis Nearby Tweets geo-centric tool 4 social networking, customer relationships, & monitoring real-time buzz http://bdnooz.com/17e

RT @RoadTweets is an iPhone app that makes it easy to share trip updates from the road http://bdnooz.com/b96

RT @schapsis Use SadakMap to post Location aware Twitter udpates http://bdnooz.com/16o

RT @schapsis tmeet is a tweet 2 meet. U cn send a tmeet abt yr location 2 tell yr friends whr U R, wht U R doing, etc http://bdnooz.com/qfb

RT @schapsis Tweetervision see tweets in their geographic context! http://bdnooz.com/pqm

RT @schapsis Tweetmondo allows U to find other Twitter users based on their geographical location http://bdnooz.com/h9g

RT @schapsis TwittEarth :: Live Twitts all over the world  http://bdnooz.com/v74

RT @schapsis Twibez is 4 everyone who is interested 2 C all twitter messages in western europe in realtime on a map http://bdnooz.com/wyl

RT @schapsis TwitterMap is a geographic visualization of posts to Twitter, using Twitter Feeds and Google Maps http://bdnooz.com/ouo

RT @schapsis TwtMaps allows U 2 enter yr twttr name & get a map that shows all yr friends locations,& info abt friend http://bdnooz.com/sp0

Yahoo Pipes

Yahoo Pipes is a powerful composition tool to aggregate, manipulate, and mashup content from around the web. The following are some of the Pipes that combine tweets and maps NOTE: If you know the twitter name of any of the pipes’ developers mentioned bellow, please send me a note and I’ll include them here.

RT @schapsis geoTwitterous A pipe to augment your twitter feed with info from the twittervision API http://bdnooz.com/te8

RT @schapsis Twitter Map Search Search a keyword on Twitter and view the result on a map! http://bdnooz.com/tw1

RT @schapsis Twitter What Where This Pipes app shows where people are tweeting on a particular topic Pipe Web Address: http://bdnooz.com/w1c

RT @schapsis Tweets Nearby See the tweets happening near a Twitter user’s location. Pipe Web Address: http://bdnooz.com/u1m

RT @schapsis GeoStatus Converts emails in2 a feed wth a LNK 2 Google Maps. Subject bcms a Twtr msg wth a LNK 2 a map: http://bdnooz.com/2pq

RT @schapsis Tweets on a Map Shows posts to Twitter by a location you choose. Pipe Web Address: http://bdnooz.com/eku

RT @schapsis Twitter Locate adds the location of each of your followers to the updates. Pipe Web Address: http://bdnooz.com/omr

RT @schapsis Your Twitter Followers Location Enter your Twitter ID 2 find out where your latest followers are located http://bdnooz.com/h1f

RT @schapsis Twitter Friends Show your Twitter friends on a map that can be easily added to your blog’s sidebar  http://bdnooz.com/uef