Twitter May Take On Foursquare With New Twitter Places

Twitter may be preparing to expand its location sharing services to take on Foursquare, at least according to a screen shot doing the rounds.

The shot (above) shows an expanded Twitter Places service, with the ability to check-in to a specific venue now value added with a Foursquare like venue page.

The venue page shows who else has checked in recently at the venue, and of particular note includes the ability for users to claim the venue.

We’re not sure if claiming a venue is a Foursquare mayor clone, or more similar to the ability in Foursquare for businesses to claim their premises, but we’re sure of one thing: it’s very Foursquare like in its appearance.

The image first appeared on Hackernews (via Dave Winer) and cant be confirmed as legitimate at this stage, however there was a link (now not working) on the Twitter.com domain where this was allegedly visible for a period of time.

Twitter launched Twitter places in June 2010, adding the ability to name the location where you are tweeting from, as opposed to simply geotagging it. The function hasn’t been taken up extensively, with even common geotagging still fairly uncommon among many twitter users. The addition of a Foursquare like check-in and venue page might just be the kick start Twitter needs to drive Twitter Places to the next level, and even take on Foursquare at its own game.