Twitter adds location with Places feature

Twitter Places allows users to tag tweets with specific locations

Twitter has added new functionality to its micro-blogging service allowing users to add location information to tweets.

Twitter Places will ask users to click on an 'add your location' link below the tweet box. The location will then appear underneath the user's name and after their tweets.

"Starting today, you can tag tweets with specific places, including all World Cup stadiums in South Africa, and create new Twitter Places," said Othman Laraki, director of geo-location at Twitter, in a blog post.

"You can also click a Twitter Place within a tweet to see recent tweets from a particular location."

Also included in the announcement is deeper integration with the Foursquare and Gowalla location-based services.

This means that clicking on a Twitter Place will bring up recent tweets made from that location, as well as recent check-ins users might have made via Foursquare and Gowalla.

Laraki said that Twitter is also announcing an API which lets developers integrate Twitter Places into applications, and support for more browsers.

Location is widely seen as the next battleground on which social networks will fight for superiority, although few have managed to monetise such services.

Foursquare announced in March that it had gained nearly 725,000 users after just one year in business, more than Twitter achieved in its first year.

Yahoo, meanwhile, has also sought to get in on the act with the acquisition of Foursquare rival Koprol.