Despite its name, TweetsLounge.com is not a hookup joint for singles, but is instead a way for people to search for and find local businesses who’re using Twitter.  Still in beta, the site has a simple search form you can use to find businesses in your local area and their Twitter accounts.

The matches are shown with their Twitter bio and other information and you can follow them from there.  You can also ad your own business to the listings for future searches.

If you’ve followed my Twitter account (@Lapp), you know that our local Police Department’s Chief has his own Twitter that I follow and have made comments on regularly.  This kind of outreach is becoming the modern way to get in touch.  Social networking isn’t just for the big marketing gurus anymore.  Even the local business can benefit.

The idea is pretty good and keeping with the simplicity of Twitter, TweetsLounge has kept their site simple and easy to use.  Normal users don’t have to sign in or even give their Twitter info to use the site, but businesses who’d like to register to be seen will need to go through the process.

Very cool and very much needed, so if this new site catches on, you can expect it to become a hub for this sort of thing.

Currently, while in beta, Tweets Lounge is focused on the Seattle area of Washington.  Users can sign in using their Twitter account if they’d like to make searches more automated and compare whether the business you’re looking for is already on your friends list.

Tweets Lounge was started by Peter Boctor, a Seattle-based software developer specializing in Ruby on Rails and iPhone apps.  His Twitter account is, of course, on Tweets Lounge too.