Slashdot Mirror
Twitter Developing Location-Based API
adeelarshad82 writes "Twitter developers are now working on a location-based API that will provide accurate information on your whereabouts. Developers will be able to add latitude and longitude to any tweet. The option will definitely be opt-in. Folks will need to activate this new feature by choice, and the exact location data won't be stored for an extended period of time."
function TwitterAPIGetLocation(name) {
return name + ' is in front of a PC';
}
GPS Twitter
Twittervision
Twittermap
Could have been one of those... and I'm sure there are others.
"...and the exact location data won't be stored for an extended period of time."
*face palm* Once it's on the internet, it's going to stay there til the end of days. People with billions of dollars have hired armies of lawyers to try and scrub data off the internet. They haven't yet succeeded. Hell, entire countries have tried. And to prove it... bomb president 9/11 terrorist airplane communist republican from france sucking down molitav cocktails and banging gay senators. There. Archived for infinity.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
People say the same thing about MySpace, yet there is is, plodding along as strong (PINK PONIES!) as ever... Twitter and MySpace are a way for people with relatively benign and routine existences to validate themselves - I EXIST! I AM IMPORTANT... TO SOMEONE...
I have accepted that I am an uniportant tiny cog in some huge machine and no one cares to know the exact moment I take a shit (and where).
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
flash mobs, protests, meetings etc.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
I really cannot understand what everybody's interest in Twitter is. I've used it and read some posts and still cannot understand why it is so popular. Maybe I just "don't get it"?
This is what I don't like about the whole phenomena. You take something that has been mainstream technology for about ten years or more, like instant messaging, put an implementation of it on a Web site with some Javascript, market the hell out of it, and now you have a trendy new site. The same process applies to Facebook and Myspace and others.
In the case of Twitter, the only improvement that's happened here is that anyone with a decent browser can access it. The mainstream instant messaging clients failed for various reasons to come up with a single open standard. In fact, they often actively tried to hinder multiple-protocol IM clients. That difference is the only rational reason for the hype attributed to Twitter. The rest is just marketing and trend-following because otherwise there is nothing new and interesting going on.
I think you do "get it" and that's precisely why you don't share the interest in this trend. Of course there's nothing wrong with using a site and enjoying it but jumping on its bandwagon and indulging its hype is another thing entirely. I don't think this is about anything interesting from Twitter, but rather, is about a generation of users who probably don't understand the full implications and potential consequences of disclosing personally identifying information or of turning your day-to-day life into a public spectacle.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
flash mobs, protests, meetings etc.
To make my question more specific: in which of those scenarios would you be disinclined to tell anyone your physical whereabouts and at the same time, would be glad that an automated system did this for you?
Take meetings, for example. I send an e-mail to a group of co-workers saying "we can meet at X place at Y time." Everyone knows the location of X and knows how to get there, so my legitimate concern about location is satisfied. If I am in a meeting room with them, obviously I know where they are at that time. So, why would I need to know where they are before Y time and why would I need to know where they go after the meeting is over? That's the only thing this system could tell me that I didn't already know. Why would I want them knowing this information about me?
What I'm looking for is "ah-ha, this is the necessity that was the mother of this invention." And I'm not finding it, at all. It really just seems to be a way for Twitter to pander to the exhibitionist tendencies of some of its users. You know, the ones who think that making every moment of their personal life a public event is somehow desirable for them and/or somehow interesting for others. It doesn't paint a good picture but it's an explanation that makes sense.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Maybe the cause of your surprise is that you're trivializing things that are actually quite important.
By making Twitter accessible via a web site, the effort required to follow a feed went from (minor, and slightly technical) to (nada). With something like Twitter, which is of only marginal value to most people, I'm guessing that using it needs to have just about zero degree of inconvenience, or else people just won't bother.
Folks will need to activate this new feature by choice, and the exact location data won't be stored for an extended period of time.
Fat chance, me thinks. If this catches on, you can bet there will be 3rd party services that cache and index this location data indefinitely.
What I don't get is how otherwise seemingly intelligent people are, time and again, surprised by the fact that marketing works.
That's because it works for all of the wrong reasons. It works because people are easy to manipulate and shouldn't be, not because the thing being marketed is inherently a good idea. It's not fun for a reasonably intelligent person to be reminded that so many people who should be capable of making their own decisions will refuse to think for themselves. The worst part is that there's very little you can hope to do about that because the people who refuse to think don't usually see this as a problem.
A second way to answer that, is that "seemingly intelligent" people are usually good with things like logic and reasoning. The manipulation of marketing happens largely on an emotional/irrational level. In fact it often goes against basic logic, like the logic which says that a paid advertisement promoting Company A's products is not a good, unbiased source of information about Company A or its products and business practices.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Oddly enough, something a dog would definitely be interested in. ;-)
Tell me about, one day I was using Twitter on the crapper and the dog wouldn't leave me be, so I just had to tweet about it.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
Let me rephrase your post, if I may presume: "I can't see a use for it, therefore it is not useful. Because so many other people find it useful in spite of this, it is a failing in them."
I'm looking at my iPhone running TwitterPhone right now. It supports adding my location to my tweets, and letting me search for anyone posting within a certain radius of my location. Is this just an old story, or is there something new here I'm missing?
/. after all.
You're not hallucinating about twitter. Maybe about the girlfriend, this is
There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.
Let me rephrase your post, if I may presume: "I can't see a use for it, therefore it is not useful. Because so many other people find it useful in spite of this, it is a failing in them."
Yes. You have hit the nail squarely on the head.
Contrary to your intent to be a tad snarky, you have exposed the actual truth.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32408652/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The problem with all of those scenarios is that there's no good way to limit that information to only the relevant parties. I don't need the world knowing my personal whereabouts because I couldn't be bothered to send an e-mail about the road trip to the handful of people with whom I want to share that information.
When I don't see a rational reason for a thing, you can pretend like this is about my personal tastes and preferences if that comforts you from the blow of a rational objection, but it's a bit silly. None of your scenarios there have answered my real question. If I want a person to know where I am, I will tell that person (or that group, etc.). If I don't want them to know, I won't tell them. How does an automated system that, once you opt-in, can automatically tell anyone and everyone where you are, fit into this?
Or, who is it out there who feels like "I want this person or this group to know my whereabouts, but I don't want to tell them my whereabouts, oh if only some automated system would do it for me!" Who are those people? That question remains unanswered; thus, this location system is a solution in search of a problem and that's bad when it has potential privacy issues. For any of the scenarios you listed to really answer my question, you'd first have to demonstrate how directly informing your intended audience would be so inadequate that a whole new system must be invented to automate the process. That has not happened.
Instead, I've received answers to questions I have not asked and some of them have come with smug commentary like yours that seem designed to make me feel foolish for questioning this (good luck with that). I don't think that indicates any malice on your part, but it does indicate that this new move of Twitter's is another "because we can" sort of thing that was never a response to any legitimate need. If it were otherwise, any smugness would be in terms of "it fulfills purpose X, duh, can't you see that?!" instead of this type of response.
Sometimes people like a thing for irrational reasons, because they think it's cool or interesting or because they have bought into the hype. When that's the case and you question the purpose of that thing, it's quite amusing to see the things people will do instead of admitting that either there is no good explanation that makes sense or that such an explanation is unknown to them. It's alright to like frills and frivolous things but when you pretend that there is any significance to them, you find yourself in odd (and defensive) positions like making personal matters out of objective questions.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Not sure if it's a "need" per se... but this app does mean we know where all the stupid people are. That's definitely useful.
Don't forget negative. If I'm screwing you over with a polite smile on my face and you have the rudeness to point this out - you're NEGATIVE!
Requiem for the American Dream
Can they add a URL a la tinyurl.com/bit.ly/etc instead/as an option?
Ken