14 DAY TRIAL // Everyone is becoming more and more interested in geolocation and for good reason. Besides the hype that surrounds most new technologies, geolocation has a lot of applications and is set to transform the way we use the web in a profound manner. Twitter, which is getting its fair share of hype on its own, is betting big on location and has already released a Geotagging API to enable tweets to have location data attached. Now it's stepping up its game with the acquisition of Mixer Labs, makers of the GeoAPI which will be integrated with Twitter's own APIs.
"[W]e're excited to announce a major new step into the location-aware future. Twitter has acquired Mixer Labs, creators of GeoAPI," Twitter cofounder Biz Stone wrote. "The Mixer Labs crew has been working on harnessing the power of local information for a couple years and just recently launched GeoAPI, a comprehensive service for helping developers build geolocation-aware applications. As of today, they're part of Twitter and will be working to combine the contextual relevance of location to tweets."
The acquisition was more of a talent hire, though the technology Mixer Labs developed also played a big role. The plan is to implement the GeoAPI directly into Twitter's own location APIs to speed up the company's efforts in this area. Mixer Labs runs several services, besides maintaining the recently launched GeoAPI, including Reverse Geodecoder, a tool to find a location based on its latitude and longitude, Places Finder and Media Layers.
Twitter has introduced geolocation features through the API, but the feature hasn't exactly exploded in use. Most third-party clients have implemented it, but users are required to enable it themselves if they want to add location data to their tweets. Location data isn't available on the site yet. A number of apps, like Foursquares and Gowalla, have popped up taking advantage of the GSP capabilities of most smartphones and other mobile devices and Twitter likely wants to get in on the game as well.