Twitter may tap Foursquare to make location more relevant in tweets
Twitter's been focused quite a bit on mainstream appeal over the past few years -- often to the point of ignoring aspects of its platform that sorely need some updating. Take the way Twitter handles location: You can manually add where you're tweeting from, but that data doesn't yet serve much of a purpose. That could all change next year, though. Twitter is reportedly planning to take advantage of Foursquare's treasure trove of location data to add some much-needed context to your posts, according to Business Insider. For example, when you tweet about visiting a new city or restaurant, you could automatically get some recommendations of other places to visit, or some tips on what's hot on the menu. And yes, you may even get to check in right from Twitter.
While neither company is admitting to the partnership yet, it wouldn't be surprising to see them team up. At a recent analyst event, Twitter noted a few ways better location data could improve its service. Showing contextually relevant information to new users might convince them to open up the Twitter app again, for example.
The partnership would be an equally big deal for Foursquare, which has basically spent the past couple years treading water. Now, the company is looking beyond the check-in (it moved that feature to the standalone app Swarm earlier this year) and is focusing on using its location smarts to help you find interesting places and events. And of course, it's also eager to sell that data to willing partners like Microsoft.
