Twitter Buys Mixer Labs for Geolocation Plans

Twitter Buys Mixer Labs for Geolocation Plans

Techtree News Staff, Dec 24, 2009 1510 hrs IST

GeoAPI will be integrated in the Twitter API for several Twitter apps

Micro-blogging service Twitter has announced the take-over of Mixer Labs and is looking forward to integrate geolocation-based features in its API. Based on Mixer Labs' GeoAPI that allows building location-aware apps, Twitter will look forward to integrate that with other Twitter apps. At the official Twitter Blog, Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder, noted that Twitter team would be looking forward to integrated GeoAPI in the TwitterAPI.

Twitter service is being used sporadically by millions of users and information from any corner of the world could turn out to be crucial. Mixer Labs have created the GeoAPI - a comprehensive service that helps developers build geolocation-aware applications. Back in November, Twitter announced Geotagging API for several Twitter Apps and now Mixer Labs' Geolocation services will be integrated with Twitter API.

This means the users of apps like Twitterlator Pro, Birdfeed, Foursquare, Gowalla, and few others would add locations along with their updates from these apps. The chief aim of this integration is to bring 'contextual relevance' in location of the tweets. Of course, the location awareness feature will come with an option buy the user whether they want the app to determine their location or not.

Let's hope the users have privacy settings in their hands from the apps - for instance, they can turn off the location-determining for a while from the app.