The folks over at Twitter are reportedly testing a new feature called “Nearby,” which as the name suggests would show you who is tweeting nearby. Apparently it wouldn’t matter if you follow those users or not, the additional Nearby timeline that will be added to the mobile apps will display all tweets being made close to your location. This feature seems like an effort to get more people to share their location on the microblogging network, which first allowed users to attach location information to their tweets back in 2010.
The Nearby feature would be quite useful for users who are looking for locationally relevant tweets, which can sometimes be quite hard to find using the “discover” tab and the microblogging network’s search feature. It would effectively fill that void, while another advantage would be that Twitter will be able to offer advertisers more precise targeting options. Pivotal Research group analyst Brian Wieser believes that it is likely that this new feature might prove to be “incrementally interesting to some advertisers.” Users location will likely not show up in the Nearby timeline if they have not opted in to attach location information with their tweets, when Twitter offered the option almost three years ago, it left it up to users to opt in if they wanted to and that hasn’t been changed to this day. When contacted by WSJ, a spokeswoman for the company declined to comment if Twitter has indeed been testing the feature. However, screenshots received by the publication from people who have used the feature point to the contrary.
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