Thinking locally with Twitter

Today I've been reading about using local information in Twitter. Below is a rapid drive-by of a few sites and then some thoughts.

Twitter

Twitter allows local search. Example: within 15 miles of Minneapolis. It looked like other Twitter streams to me: people posting links to their wares, posting about Domino's. I did see a tweet about the vikings, but who needs to go to Twitter for that?

Twitter also announced local trending topics today. Maybe that will have content more worth seeking.

Localtweeps

The Twin Cities' own http://localtweeps.com, where you register by zip code (U.S. only), then you can see other localtweeps in that zip code. You can also do a local search (e.g., "55102 jazz").

Requires your Twitter password. Are people afraid of sharing their password? Apparently not.

I found several businesses local to me: a coffee shop, a restaurant, some political organizations, several people hawking their wares ("Will design for work"), and just folk ("Crazy cat lady in training").

Twellow

twellow, which seems to have an automatically mined Twitter directory by city (here's Minneapolis). It offers suggested users for you to follow, looks like from the location and bio fields.

I found the most popular Twitterer by far in Minneapolis: Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) has almost 1.5 million followers.

I tried the suggested users for me (again have to sign up and give a password), and the keyword-based suggestions left me a little cold. I have jazz in my profile (as in the music) and it suggested someone who enjoys "Social Media and all that Jazz". Hmmph.

Chirpcity

chirpcity which again seems to have an automatically mined Twitter directory by city (sample: Minneapolis). It shows tweets from people in the city, and about the city.

Again, I cannot claim to have used any of these services in detail, but I found simply a list of tweets uncompelling. I don't even have time to read the tweets of everyone I'm following!

Tweetmondo

Tweetmondo (careful of their auto-tweeting when you sign up!) finds local people tweeting and drops them on a map.

Okay, the map was cool. However, there were only two people on the map, one of them at the airport. Minneapolis has more people than that!

Others

Twitterholic also has local search, e.g. Minneapolis. Interestingly, they miss neilhimself, possibly because his location his "mostly near Minneapolis" instead of "Minneapolis, MN".

I'm getting many of these to try from a Mashable post in June 2009 and I don't even have time to try them all!

Thoughts

The online world is complicated and moving faster than the speed of thought! Who has time to even understand all of this stuff, let alone use it?

Perhaps I am too harsh (some people would say in general)! However, I feel the strong potential for local content remains untapped. Just location is not enough. I'd like to see more sites that are designed around a particular task. Am I shopping? Am I looking for a job? A date?

Of the things I tried, localtweeps was interesting, perhaps because it is a filtered list, having required people motivated enough to seek them out and sign up. That is, I could scan through only a couple hundred entries and have a fairly high signal-to-noise ratio. I am surprised to favor a manual solution, as the geek in me usually thinks automated wins.

It was also interesting to see from Twellow the most popular Twitterer in Minneapolis (with 1.5M followers), although following my local restaurant may ultimately be more rewarding than a local celebrity. Also surprisingly, all of the rest of the twitters on the first page were not exciting to me.

Questions for you

• What Twitter local information have you used?
• What specific value have you gotten from it?
• What uses of local information would you like to see?

P.S. Picture by jmilles.