Twitter Experiments With “Nearby” Tweets

Twitter’s improvements in 2013 aren’t limited to making the service more friendly to mass advertisers. The company has begun testing a feature that generates a timeline of “nearby” tweets. Some users are already seeing it on their mobile devices, but the function has not rolled out to all users yet. The “nearby” feed displays a map with the user’s current location, and a feed of tweets, with each tweet’s location indicated on the map as well. This addition to Twitter could be just what it needs, giving users a way to prioritize and sort through millions of tweets. It could also be an opportunity for savvy marketers to respond quickly to feedback from their area, or to gain foot traffic in brick and mortar stores.