Twitter made an announcement late yesterday about their new account called @earlybird. Basically, @earlybird is a way for Twitter to partner with select advertisers and retweet their offers specifically for the Twitter community. You don’t have to follow the account to see the deals. At first glance, it looks like it’s a creative way for Twitter to capitalize on the advertising offers already happening on Twitter.

I’m excited to see where this goes. Much in the way that Foursquare, Groupon and others have partnered with advertising partners to deliver value-ads, so will @earlybird. The major difference I’m seeing is that it will be much harder for Twitter to target any of the offers.

I have yet to see Foursquare or Groupon mass-blast their consumers with nationwide or global offers. I’ll be curious to see how Twitter’s @earlybird account manages the global vs. local thinking.

What is so interesting is that right now the hot trends are mobile and local in the social sphere. Twitter definitely has the mobile thing down – but how will it capitalize on the local?  And more importantly, is localization key?  Or, is it the value of the offer?  And how will Twitter determine the “value” of the offer in all the different cultures in the Twittersphere? This is definitely something to watch.