Twitter is set to release a set of buttons for web publishers that will make it easy for visitors to share content on Twitter. The buttons are simple to install, just copy/paste a single line of code. You can choose a Javascript version, an iFrame, or a custom setup. They come in 3 different sizes: 110×20, 55×20, 55×63. It’s not the feature itself that has the web buzzing, but the fact that this feature competes directly with Tweetmeme, the long-time king of retweeting pages on the web.
Twitter’s implementation of the Tweet button can optionally show a comprehensive count of how many retweets a page has, adds an @mention of your site’s Twitter account, and makes sure the visitor never has to actually leave your site. The 5 optional settings include:
- via – this will give your site some shine as well as adding a “via” to your most relevant Twitter account and providing a recommendation for the user to follow you
- related – this option lets you specify another account suggestion for the user to follow
- text – the default text for your tweet/retweet
- url – Twitter will automatically shorten the URL of your page using it’s t.co shortener. If you want to override the URL that appears in the tweet to point somewhere, this is where you do it. There doesn’t seem to be a built-in feature to specify a different URL shortener, so you could manually provide a URL from a different service here.
- count – specify your button’s orientation: horizontal, vertical, or none (which shows no count)
At this point, it’s unclear if Twitter is blatantly going after Tweetmeme, or if the two are cooperating somehow. Given the similarities this Twitter feature shares with Tweetmeme, there could be major repercussions if they aren’t working together. Developers have already been wary of working within the Twitter ecosystem since Twitter began implementing features in-house and acquiring third-party apps. Competing so directly with a complimentary service could be seen as biting the hand that feeds them as Twitter would be nowhere without third-party applications.
The button may hit as early as tomorrow, Aug 12th. While it remains to be seen whether this is bad news for Tweetmeme, they still have some wiggle room if worse comes to worse. Beyond a simple retweet, publishers are also interested in the analytics behind those tweets, just as Bit.ly stays relevant because of the data it has around its shortened URLs. Tweetmeme also provides a Digg-like home page for you to find the hottest links on Twitter.
Do you think Twitter really going after Tweetmeme?