Okay this is a sure sign that Twitter wants to go local. Many amongst us might not notice this new feature with Twitter as many don’t really visit the Twitter homepage. Almost everyone who is regular on Twitter uses some Twitter application or the other. One very powerful way to get noticed and also to notice new events happening around the world is to watch trending topics on Twitter.
For instance if you looked up the trending topic #iPad you will get a pretty much all the important tweets you ever wanted. This makes trending topics into fantastic resource of getting latest local news on Twitter.
So now Twitter page shows you local trending topics. For instance in the image above you can see Canada. If I select a country the related cities show up below for me to select city specific trending topics which keeep on changing on the right hand side of the page.
This has great relevance when it comes to looking up Twitter for local reasons. India and Indian city is still not a part of the Local Trending options on Twitter but it will show up considering Twitter’s popularity increasing in India.
This will certainly make Twitter useful not just for people to spread the word globally but also locally. As a blogger I might think of Twitter as a great way to spread the word globally. But it would be great for a local shop or electronics outlet to spread the word using local trends.
Will Local Trending topics monetize Twitter?
This is not a rumor, but a personal opinion that Local Trending can be a great way for Twitter to get monetized. Trending topics sort of behave like search engine results. Maybe Twitter can charge certain accounts extra for their tweets to be in Trending topics more often or for a longer duration.
What do you think about local trending topics on Twitter? Let me know through your comments.