How to use Geotagging on Twitter

What is Geotagging?

Geotagging is the ability to add location to your tweets. This helps you in various ways by adding context top your tweets, Join a local conversation. Find out about restaurants close to where you are. These are a few examples of the ways in which people are using the Geotagging feature.

Is Geotagging automatic to all my tweets?

No. if you want to add Geotagging you will need to opt in. By default it is turned off and you will need to turn this feature on.

How do I turn on Geotagging?

Go to your settings page and tick the check box next to Enable Geotagging

How do I turn off this feature and delete all my tweets which had Geotagging?

From the settings page. Uncheck the box next to Geotagging and click the button that says 'Delete all location data". This process can take upto 30 minutes. Alternatively if you need to delete just a single tweet that has Geolocation delete that single tweet.

How do I enable Geotagging on my Twitter client ? ( Tweetie 2, Tweetdeck for iPhone, Twidroid etc)

You need to turn on Geotagging on your App as well as on your Twitter settings page for it to work.

How do I search for Geotagged Tweets?

You would need to go to Twitter Advanced Search. And find the option to search for people near you or the place you want to see location-based tweets from.

Places	Near this place
	Within this distance	1 5 10 15 25 50 100 500 1000 miles kilometers

Alternatively you could also use search operators as provided and defined by Twitter.

near:NYC within:15mi sent within 15 miles of "NYC".

With a host of different combionations as show below. You can mix and match till you find what you want. Please find a list of Search operatos below

Search Operators

You can type these search operators directly into the search box. (Alternatively, you can use the advanced search form to automatically construct your query.)

Operator	Finds tweets...
twitter search	containing both "twitter" and "search". This is the default operator.
"happy hour"	containing the exact phrase "happy hour".
love OR hate	containing either "love" or "hate" (or both).
beer -root	containing "beer" but not "root".
#haiku	containing the hashtag "haiku".
from:alexiskold	sent from person "alexiskold".
to:techcrunch	sent to person "techcrunch".
@mashable	referencing person "mashable".
"happy hour" near:"san francisco"	containing the exact phrase "happy hour" and sent near "san francisco".
near:NYC within:15mi	sent within 15 miles of "NYC".
superhero since:2010-01-18	containing "superhero" and sent since date "2010-01-18" (year-month-day).
ftw until:2010-01-18	containing "ftw" and sent up to date "2010-01-18".
movie -scary :)	containing "movie", but not "scary", and with a positive attitude.
flight :(	containing "flight" and with a negative attitude.
traffic ?	containing "traffic" and asking a question.
hilarious filter:links	containing "hilarious" and linking to URLs.
news source:twitterfeed	containing "news" and entered via TwitterFeed

An original post by

Sociolatte

Twitter's Innovative Contributor's Feature

Twitter has come up with an innovative strategy that could lead them to make money. Twitter is testing a "Contributors" feature that enable companies to set up an account and allow employees to contribute tweets.

Contributors can use a byline. So if a company has an account they can invite people to contribute. This enable consumers to get a more personal touch and feel of the company. They can meet employees and get to know the real people behind the organization.

This is definitely a first. So we guess that employees with former Twitter experience are going top be much sort after if this becomes main line success.

So products in development can be announced by the company and people they invite can keep the buzz going until it's official launch. This brings in new dynamics in the way companies communicate with their consumers. Now any employee can contribute to PR and relating to consumers and maybe impact the direct business sales line

An original post by

Sociolatte

Twitter spawns 50,000 Apps over the last two years

Twitter has announced that 50,000 Apps have been buil;t around it's micro-blogging service over the past two years.

"Ryan Sarver, Twitter's director of platform, made the disclosure while presenting at LeWeb conference in Paris. There was only one third party Twitter application taking advantage of the service's open feeds, Sarver said.

Sarver also said that Twitter was also planning to allow developers access to their "firehose" of Twitter data and the company will teach developers how to build Apps. Twitter will also hold a conference called "chirp" in 2010.

The Road Map ahead for the company

Transparency: "we need to be more public about our policy and intentions"
Communication: "we need to be out there and let our developers know what's going on"
Utility: "we need to keep providing our robust APIs and enable third-party developers to thrive"
Profitability: "when our partners succeed, we succeed" (more details coming early 2010)

It's rare that a service would be so dependent and opened to third-party developers and Twitter now says it will open up even more. 

The third announcement was that Twitter was putting even more emphasis on OAuth, the remote login technology, and will encourage developers to use it by increasing the API calls limit 10 times.

An original post by

Sociolatte

$6.5 million in sales for Dell thanks to twitter

Dell told Bloomberg that it has earned an estimated $6.5 million in sales through various promotions on Twitter. The PC maker has sold PC's accessories and software; thanks to promotions on Twitter.

"The company's DellOutlet account, which is home to most of the vendor's sales announcements, currently has almost 1.5 million followers. But unlike some companies, Dell has made Twitter an integral part of its operation. Bloomberg reported that "more than 100 employees send out the tweets" to customers."

@DellOutlet had more than 1.5 million followers worldwide. 

To visit the Dell Outlet page please click here.

Dell reaches Twitter users in 12 countries, including the U.S., Brazil, Mexico, China and Japan. Brazil’s Twitter users spent $800,000 in the past eight months, Mehta said.

An original post by

Sociolatte

Twitter the most popular word of 2009

With it's growing popularity both online and offline. The Global Language Monitor is reporting that "Twitter" is the most used work in the English language. It has surpassed words like Obama and H1N1 the scientific name for swine flu. With twitter all forms of communication has been limited to 140 characters that has done wonders for the Social Site. With its huge popularity with celebrities and businesses both big and small. This comes as no surprise. Even people who actually do not use twitter still talk about it.

That it's doing the rounds comes as no surprise. You're either talking about it or using it. Either ways people have some sort of affiliation to Twitter. 

"The Top Words are culled from throughout the English-speaking world, which now numbers more than 1.58 billion speakers"..

An original post by

Sociolatte

Twitter Ads Are Going To Be Fascinating

Thats what Twitter COO Dick Costolo said speaking today on a panel at TechCrunch’s Real-Time CrunchUp event in San Francisco. Twitter ads will be "fascinating," "non-traditional" and "really cool," Costolo said. "People will love the ads when they see it."

He also went furthe to explain that their business model will also allow for users to pay for certain APIs. Like if you want to see a detailed analytics dashboard of your account. Or add multiple authors to your account. These will be offered as premium services. For common folk like us things will always be free on Twitter.

In fact small start-ups can still use some APIs at a reduced cost. All in all Twitter promises that the ads will be "really cool" and fun to watch. Promising an increased user experience without being troublesome and boring.

An original post by

Sociolatte