So last night, I had a late meeting and I wound up in Union Square at 10PM having not quite eaten yet. I really don't like eating alone and so I figured I'd just give Twitter a shot.
Me: Anyone hungry near union sq?
Avi Karnani, two minutes later: I'm walking back from the office, through union sq right now actually, looking for food.
The most bizzare thing is that its the second time that Avi and I have met up this way... and it's the only two times we've met. We meant to try to connect at SXSW and it didn't happen... but not too long after, I twittered that I was going to a nextNY bar outing and he just happened to be in the area. I bumped into him in the bar, only to find out later that it was my Twitter that brought him there.
I think the key to Twitter's geolocation capability is the broadcast model and its simplicity. I didn't need to have GPS going or post cross streets or anything... and Avi didn't need to identify his location either. Twitter doesn't know the difference between "union sq" and "peanut butter" but an actual human in NYC clearly knew where I was.
Twitter still needs to figure out group features and ways to market this to localized groups of people, which this works best for, but b/c I'm lucky enough to have lots of techy friends using it in the same area, I'm finding it very useful.