Locating Tweets
According to a study at the University of Iowa, Twitter has become so popular that in October it reached 26 million tweets a day.
That does not affect the average user, with his or her followers and followees. However, Google and Microsoft invested money into Twitter in the hopes of being able to use it for their own gain. If there are so many tweets per day and no way to organize or search through the mass of information, well that does companies like Google little good.
Now, however, Twitter is adding a GPS type locater to the tweets sent. Users will be able to locate where tweets are coming from with as narrow a scope as a two block radius.
Since that adds another level to the already much invaded privacy issue, users will be given the option to opt in or out on whether their location is searchable along with their tweets.
Even with the “opt-out” feature, I find the idea frightening. Remember back when we were in elementary school and chat rooms were popular, didn’t your parents scare you with stories about not giving up any information about yourself because you never know who you’re really “talking” to?? It seems like we’ve all forgotten those lectures.
