Only a few months ago, social media giant Twitter launched their Places feature. Twitter Places has been a useful feature in that Twitter users can search for tweets from a specific location. Now Twitter may be testing a new feature to add to Places; businesses may soon be able to “claim” their physical location on Twitter. This potential feature was discovered by tech enthusiast Dave Winer and the Hacker News community. Along with a permanent URL for specific locations, this new feature in Twitter Places may allow businesses to claim their physical location in Twitter. This was primarily discovered through the fact that Twitter themselves has claimed their own headquarters. Twitter is pretty tight-lipped about this new feature, but they did release this statement, “Claiming Twitter Places is not available at this time. We’re experimenting with a variety features. Allowing businesses to claim a Place is a natural thing to consider for the future.”
It may not be a coincidence that this feature appears on the scene just four days after Facebook announced their Local Deals feature for Facebook Places. Merchants can use Facebook’s Local Deals as a social media marketing tool. All Facebook users have to do is go to Facebook Places and click on the little yellow icon (as in the image to the left). Users can claim the deal online, and then take it into the store to receive the promotion. It’s no surprise that with services offered by companies like Foursquare and Gowalla, the social media giants are doing everything they can to compete. The good news is that with all of the social media companies competing to offer the best service, both consumers and merchants come out the ahead.
Written by Brennan Mack