Twitter makes Tweet Button official, partners with TweetMeme
Sharing simplified
Twitter has officially announced the arrival of its tweet button for third-party websites, which makes the sharing of content on the site that little bit simpler.
Simply called the Tweet Button, Twitter has teemed up with TweetMeme to produce the button – which is a relief, given that TweetMeme Retweet button is the defacto standard in retweeting at the moment.
There was rumours suggesting that Twitter's official button would be a rival to what TweetMeme was offering, but it's great news that Twitter has actually sided with the UK-based start-up.
Announcing the news on its blog Twitter said about the new service: "The Tweet Button lets you share links directly from the page you're on.
"When you click on the Tweet Button, a tweet box will appear – pre-populated with a shortened link that points to the item that you're sharing."
Amazing achievement
As for TweetMeme, it has posted a blog about the link-up, explaining: "We have grown to more than 750 million daily retweet button impressions, which for a tiny team is an amazing achievement.
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"That said the market requires an official solution that can accelerate this growth. So today Twitter is launching its own Tweet Button and we are very pleased to be partnering with them to continue to grow the overall Twitter ecosystem.
"We will be assisting Twitter with the technical challenges involved with the button and secondly we will be working even more closely in the future on delivering real-time curation of the Twitter Firehose."
The Twitter Firehose in question is Twitter's API, which allows developers to tap into the millions of tweets which are posted to Twitter everyday.
The announcement today, that Twitter has made the retweet button official for third-party sites, points to a real evolution for the social network, one which brings Twitter closer to the eco-system of the web.
So far over 30 sites have already implemented the button, including Sky News, Hulu, Time and YouTube.
To see how it works, check out the video below.
Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.