Twitter tests out location-based search for tweets, photos, and videos

Twitter has started testing out new pages to look through tweets and photos from specific locations.

If the new feature has been rolled out to you, you can click on or tap new clickable location links for individual tweets in order to bring up the new search results. Alternatively, you can also get into the new search by clicking the little location icon at the top right of a tweet in your timeline.

On the Web, you can see top tweets, live tweets, photos, videos, and news articles. (The Accounts header doesn’t show anything.) On Android, searches yield just tweets and photos.

Tweets from only some users contain the new location links. If you can access this feature, you can show it to others by simply sharing the URL. For instance, here is the link for tweets and photos from people in San Francisco. (Update: The search result pages themselves have been available for at least a year and a half.) Simply searching Twitter for “San Francisco, CA” yields different results.

Twitter occasionally tests out new features before either killing them off or making them available to everyone. A few months ago, for instance, Twitter tested out a new user interface for search results, and it has since become the standard for all Twitter users.

Location is one parameter that Twitter investor Chris Sacca recently identified as an area where Twitter could introduce “channels” of accessible content that could be especially compelling to less experienced users. It’s interesting that Twitter has started testing out this feature in the wild so soon after he made that point.

Clearly Twitter is willing to try out new things. Yesterday Twitter announced a big product change — starting in July, it will increase the character limit for direct messages from 140 to 10,000.

Twitter did not immediately respond to VentureBeat’s request for comment on the location search feature.