Twitter is poised to introduce geo-tagging technology to its service, meaning that if users opt-in, their tweets will display the latitude and longitude of where they were sent from. The geo-tagging capability will be released in a new API for use by developers.

One advantage of this for journalists is clear: they will be able to reliably establish a user's location when looking for information on a specific news event. Twitter is already an extremely useful resource for spreading information about happenings at which reporters cannot be present in person, as the recent post-election conflict in Iran demonstrated. However a major problem with using Twitter in such cases is the ascertaining the reliability of the information provided. Geo-tagging would dispel with one potential source of misinformation, as it would confirm or disprove that users are actually where they say they are. Citizen photojournalism agencies already use geo-tagging technology to help authenticate the photos they receive.

Geo-tagging tweets would also simply make information on Twitter easier to locate. Applications will presumably appear that will allow a user to search for tweets coming from a specific area. Geo-tagging could also be used to create maps of user-provided data.

However, the very precision of geo-tagging could put some people off using it. Poynter's David Johnson points to the fear that particularly for female journalists or those on controversial beats, allowing their movements to be tracked via Twitter could prove harmful to their personal safety. Johnson quotes Andy Carvin of the Social Media Desk at NPR, who points out that for a reporter "interviewing someone on a sensitive topic, it wouldn't be prudent to tweet about it with a geotag of their location."

So while there is much potential for reporters to make use of the geo-tagging with regards to information provided by others, maybe they, like the rest of the public, should be wary when using it themselves.

Source: Twitter, Poynter