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Twitter is getting closer to the promise of bringing location into the equation as a key component to status updates. Its geolocation support is rolling out, and it recently announced a new local trending topics feature.

The general concept here is that status updates are becoming the standard units of social networking. And inherent drivers of relevence in status updates involve location (i.e., what you’re doing, where you are, and where you’re going).

Location tags that are more automatic (on an opt-in basis, of course) open the door for new dimensions of relevance that are baked into tweets. Lots of implications: see our coverage of the initial geolocation API announcement and speculation of what it means for local search.

Few third parties have begun to build Twitter applications and clients that utilize the geolocation API but we’ll see many more in the coming months. Birdfeed, for example, is a mobile Twitter client that will do just that.

Meanwhile Twitter’s tighter integration with search engines means geo-specific tweets could surface in local search results in places like Google and Bing.

We’ll discuss these and other social media issues at the upcoming Interactive Local Media conference in Los Angeles next month. Twitter’s Anamitra Banerji will join Facebook’s Tim Kendall and Citysearch’s Kara Nortman for a session on the melding of local and social media.

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On a related note, Google Latitude is parading a new feature that tells users where they’ve been — a sort of social travel log that can be saved and shared.

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