Twitter has a location-based element to it, but it’s not that sophisticated and it’s not really a huge part of the service. It appears the company may be looking to change that.

Business Insider is quoting the ubiquitous “sources familiar with the matter”, who says that Twitter is eyeing a partnership with Foursquare, to utilize the latter’s massive databases of location information and tools for harnessing it.

According to the source, this partnership is imminent and we could see the fruits of it as early as Q1 of next year.

From BI:

Right now, Twitter’s location features are limited. It can tell where a user is when he or she signs up, as well as the location a user lists in his or her bio. But the company believes determining where each tweet originates could be powerful too.

A Twitter spokesperson declined to acknowledge the partnership with Foursquare, but noted the company sees location as a “vehicle of discovery.” Features could include Foursquare-like venue check-ins in tweets, local recommendations, and organizing content around a user’s current whereabouts.

Foursquare (and now Swarm) has always had a place on Twitter, as people cross-post Foursquare (now Swarm) check-ins to Twitter on a regular basis.

For Twitter, sophisticated location data on its nearly 300 million users could pay dividends when it comes to an ad strategy. It could also help the company better deliver specific content to its users.