Introducing twitter’s first augmented reality iPhone app with geo-tagging built in.

Twitter 360 is an iPhone app that lets you visually see the flow of tweets from locations nearby, layered on top of your natural “real” environment.

Thanks to to the iPhone’s video camera and Twitter’s new Geotagging feature, you’ll see live Tweets pop up based on your current location. You’ll be able to see where the tweets are coming from as well as how far the person tweeting is. As with most of the augmented reality iPhone apps, you’ll need the built in compass which only comes with the iPhone 3GS.

This isn’t the first stab at the Augmented Reality Twitter app but, as far as we are aware, this is the first app to use the feature with Twitter’s new geo-tagging feature. That said, while this may be the first, don’t expect it to be the last. We’re certain a flurry of these will appear over the coming weeks.

What else does it bring to the table?

“Latest Tweets” mode. See the latest tweets of your friends (iPhone horizontal position), and the location from where they were posted (iPhone vertical position) using the Augmented Reality functionality. When a tweet is selected, a blue arrow (compass) is displayed to show the direction and the distance to the location from where the tweet was posted. The distance is updated in real time as you walk in the streets.

“Locate my Friends” mode. List of all your best friends. Twitter 360 lets you track geographic movements of your friends, you can now see where are located your nearby friends via Augmented Reality. If you want to hang out with a particular friend, use this tool to go meet him / her. Unlike the “Latest Tweets” mode (which is more focused on the tweets), the location of each of your friends is calculated with the “location” field data on the Twitter account. When a friend is selected, a blue arrow is displayed to show the direction and the distance to the location of that friend. The selected friend is highlighted in blue. The distance is updated in real time as you walk in the streets.

When you launch Twitter 360, a small bird will localize your exact position and update the “location” field data on your Twitter account with the coordinates, only if you want.

Google Maps. It is possible to locate your nearest Twitter friends from your position on Google Map within the application.

Switch off the geolocalization option in the setting to be in “invisible” mode. Your friends won’t be able to see where you are anymore. Your tweets won’t be geotagged.

The app is available now in the app store and costs £1.79. Watch the video below if you’re interested in seeing how it works before venturing into the app store.