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Twitter will soon release a Geolocation feature.

Depending on personal preferences, people find the new feature to be a great new addition or a breach of privacy.

First, let us go over what the Geolocation feature is and what it does.

If you are familiar with databases, you know that they have records and each record has fields.

If you think of each tweet as a record, then each tweet will have fields to store your location information.

On the face of it, that sounds kind of creepy.

It sounds like Twitter will know where you are at all times. This is true, if you use the feature.

You can only use the feature if your computer or phone has the necessary software and a GPS.

Many of us use Twitter through SMS (text messaging), which does not carry location information. Simply using Twitter will not reveal your location.

In addition, revealing your location on Twitter will be optional.

Like most social media services, you have control over what information people can see about you.

Furthermore, Twitter will only store your location information for two weeks.

Twitter is not the first social media service with location sharing.

My favorite is Brightkite, which allows you to check in at a location, share posts, and share photographs.

For a sample, you can view my Brightkite profile at http://brightkite.com/people/shaine. It should sort of give you an idea of what Twitter will be like with location services.

Other services that allow location sharing are Foursquare, Loopt, Google Latitude, Qik and even Flickr.

Many of these services require a GPS to function.

Why is location sharing useful? What use is there in sharing your location? Here are some ideas:

• Find other people who Tweet nearby.
• Tweet your opinion about a business. This helps other customers and also serves the business for market research.
• Get alerts when one of your Twitter friends is in town or in the neighborhood.
• You can backtrack your day by following your own tweets.
• Sometimes you want people to find you, like during promotions and events.
• During an event, you can see tweets from other attendees.

Many of my early-adopter friends jump on to all new social media platforms soon after their release.

Some have no problem sharing their location and others are extremely hesitant to do it.

Twitter with Geo location may not be for everybody.

Some drawbacks to sharing your location

• Users can fake their location.
• Being somewhere indicates you are not somewhere else where you should be, right boss?
• If you are the sort to have enemies, then they know where to find you.
• If you are a celebrity, it may be inconvenient or dangerous to share your location.
• If you are the paranoid type, this will not calm your nerves.
• If you are working at Area 51

Overall, Twitter with Geo location will be a great benefit for people looking for location-specific information.

It has great commercial promise.

On the other hand, I doubt most people will use the feature out of fear of "being watched" despite the controls available.