This post on TwellowHood, a tool to find local twitter users is by Billy Nab from South Platte Web Design (follow him at @southplatte.)
Have you ever wondered who is using Twitter that is close by? Looking to connect to people in your city? TwellowHood is a new service launched this month by the folks over at WebProNews, which allows Twitter users to do just that. Think of it as a way to find your neighbor on Twitter.
The initial page is very simple, consisting of a few ad links across the very top, the nifty Twellow and TwellowHood logos. Those are followed by a map of the United States and Canada. Sorry for users of other countries, at this time only the US and Canada based Twitter users are listed, though the site does note they are working to provide access for users in other countries. It should be noted the parent service Twellow does list international users.
To find neighboring Twitterers you simply click on the map to zoom in, and once at the state level you will be presented with a list of cities that have known Twitter users. This information would appear to be gathered in two ways. The first way would appear the service is combing Twitter for profiles. I say this because I had never signed up for Twellow, the service before TwellowHood, yet I was listed and had to “claim” my profile. The second way is users manually adding their Twitter profile to the Twellow service, which adds it to the TwellowHood service. There is a link at the bottom of the page to do this, though it is important to note that your Twitter profile must be set to be in the Public timeline so the service can obtain the information.
Once the city is selected, users are presented with a list of Titter users in that city, sorted initially by number of followers. Each listing includes the latest Tweet, their avatar, the categories they belong to, number of followers, when they were added, location, their URL and links to any of a number of social network places on the web they are identified with. Users can view more information about the users by clicking on the profile name. This will give the 5 most recent Tweets.
One feature of the Twellow service, related to TwellowHood, is the ability for users to create extended profiles. This allows you to identify yourself better, as well as identify those in your TwellowHood better. This extended bio allows users to freely type a 2000 character biography, much more information to gain more followers and to identify better whom to follow on Twitter, and it allows some limited HTML tags to spruce it up a bit.
TwellowHood allows you to find people in your general geographic area, and since it links directly back to their Twitter profile, it is easy to start following them on Twitter. The TwellowHood service enables Twitter users to find other Twitter users and connect to them in a new, closer way. While still a newer service, I was surprised to find 26 people from my city, which has a population under 150,000.
@alexmendoza
Looks awesome! I was hoping there was something like this.
@flyingdan
Excellent, I’ve already found many people through it. Thanks, Darren!
@farrhad
This is great!
You never know who you may stumble upon, but its not available in India.
Anyways, will keep it in mind.
Cheers!
@54degrees
*cry* Only US and Canada
@ThinkerGoneMad
Sweet! Thanks for the info…
Introducing krumlr to the Twittersphere. Where do all the tinyURLs go? Just launched http://www.krumlr.com a social bookmarking site with a Twittter twist, will easily bookmark your interesting pages and tweet about them too with a single click.
This is great, found some local people, GREAT find.
Hmmm… it found me no problem, but I’m not quite sure how… I don’t have my city in my profile. Hmmm.
It IS a neat service, though.
Hey Darren just noticed that the twitter field is missing…..why did you take it off?
*sorry for the irrelevant comment*
I do not really care about anything like this but it is really cool. It would help if you are looking for your local friends.
Those with local-focus blogs take note. I’ve had great success making local contacts through Twitter and this is yet another useful tool. I would love to see more Twitip posts on strategies for connecting with locals. Thanks, Darren.
Great app unfortunately its don’t have Colombia so i will have to wait a lot to see it, and take a try of it.
It’s a great tool…the only thing I noticed is that District of Columbia isn’t on the map for US so you have to just search for DC users instead.
Just checked into this and found some people around here in ATLANTA that I didn’t know was on. Thanks for the resource. I will now use it for world domination!!!!!!
Wow, there’s is only one other person in my town that uses Twitter right now.
I think this is a great resource for networking in the surrounding areas. Thank you for sharing.
Jay
Follow me on Twitter @jayphilips
I’m not super-excited about the interface, but the site is a really great idea. I found a bunch of my neighbors (literally in my complex) who are now on Twitter. It’s totally blowing up!
Where’s the UK?!!
@BlogProducer
Great article! I have been looking for a way to find local twitter users! Keep up the good work.