Twitter adds Places feature to Twitter Location

Twitter Places officially went live today, this feature was announced back in April at the Twitter Developer Conference: Chirp. [Image: Twitter.com]  Quick rundown of Twitter Places:Twitter Places allows you to tag your tweets to the specific location you are broadcasting from. It's available on Twitter.com and Mobile.Twitter.com (U.S users only for now). Twitter users will be able to click on a location and see all the tweets in that area. Foursquare and Gowalla will now be integrated into Twitter Places too, with information from these platforms displaying underneath tweets (picture below). In short, it will show all other check-ins from that location on Twitter.com Twitter is also releasing API functionality which will allow developers to integrate Twitter Places into their third-party application. Over the next week, the new Twitter Places feature will be rolling out to 65 countries, made possible by partnerships formed with TomTom and Localeze. Twitter claims they're not competing with Foursquare and Gowalla seeing it as a win-win combination for all parties involved. Twitter made a smart, smart move here. Allowing the integration of this geo-locational functionality into their third party applications (like Hootesuite or Seesmic) means people will stay using one application. It basically gives Twitter an edge over Gowalla or Foursquare's on-phone apps.  Credit goes to Foursquare and Gowalla as well, because it’s a great step towards further monetizing their service. And as they say, “if you can't beat them, join them”.  We will keep an eye out when this feature becomes available in New Zealand. Leave a comment below to share your thoughts on Twitter Places, is it useful? Or will this be another Twitter "bomb" feature?