The Impact of Twitter Places--Is it too personal?

http://tiny.cc/faah4

This article discusses how Twitter Places will revolutionize the way we connect with each other, as well as the way companies advertise. Places has been revamped so that now users can choose when to add their location to their tweets, instead of being forced to like previous versions. This author believes that this application will turn location-sharing into a mainstream activity. As such, it is expected that the projected popularity of Places will boost the use of other applications like FourSquare and Gowalla.

I suppose I remain a skeptic in the practicality of these sorts of features. Personally, I don't think I want people to know exactly where I am, with geographic coordinates and all. If they really want to find me, they can do so with those satellites that can locate someone within a few inches. That is scary enough for me--I don't feel the need to broadcast my exact location otherwise. To me, it's a safety thing. Especially after reading the blog about the Please Rob Me site...there are too manny nutters out there that I wouldn't trust with the information. It's one thing to say you're at a specific event or at a certain mall, etc...but giving out the address to where you are just seems unnecessary to me.

I am really curious to see how things like FourSquare take off. Who knows, maybe one day I will create my own account. But is this just one more example of how social media is becoming a bit too personal? The article says that location-sharing will allow for location-specific advertising. Ok, fair enough. But should we be sacrificing our anonymity to do so? I guess I am going to need a lot more convincing to turn on my Places feature in Twitter, because at present, the ability to get a specific Starbucks ad is not enough incentive for me to broadcast to who-only-knows about where to find me. Don't get me wrong, I love Facebook and Twitter, but I'm a little gun shy about getting this personal. And better yet, will this really have that much of an impact on advertising? Maybe so. I'd love to see if it proves useful in that arena. But my bigger question is....is the personal cost too high?