14 DAY TRIAL // If the solid rumor that Facebook is getting into geolocation soon hasn't been enough to make it clear that location is going to be very big very soon, it's now clear that Twitter is just about to enable geolocation features on Twitter.com, perhaps as soon as this week. The features went live for a short period on the site, as TechCrunch spotted, but are now missing again. Likely, Twitter is testing the features and putting the final touches in preparation for a launch possibly coming at this year's SXSWi conference.
Twitter has enabled geolocation features in the APIs for several months now, since November, and has said it will extend them to the site at some point. The microblogging service hasn't made any time line for the launch available as of yet, but, if the testing is any indication, it should be very soon.
There really isn't any better place to launch the feature than at SXSW, where Twitter launched with great hype three years ago. The site's huge success of late has served to also establish SXSW as a great place to launch a startup and, at the same time, to check out the latest or emerging trends on the Web.
As for the location feature itself, it's pretty basic, but effective. Tweets will get a small location indicator icon. Clicking on the icon, which looks remarkably like a place marker in Google Maps, will pop up a small overlay with the map of the location from where the tweet was made powered by Google Maps. The buttons will be available both for every tweet page, and also in the main stream.
The feature is still in testing apparently, so it may show up now and again for various users, but, even if you don't see it, don't fret, it probably won't be long until everyone gets to enjoy it. On the other hand, location has proven to be quite unpopular with Twitter users and some numbers indicate that very, very few people have been using it since it has become available through the API, despite the fact that Twitter sees a lot of use on mobile devices and third-party apps.