Twitter embeds itself into the fabric of the web

Wednesday, Mar 17, 2010

Twitter has announced technology that it hopes will further embed the service into the fabric of the web.

@anywhere, as it is known, will allow people using websites such as Amazon or the New York Times to follow new users or share media directly from the page.

It was unveiled at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

It is similar to Facebook's Connect service that allows people to log in to other websites using their Facebook details and interact with friends.

"Imagine being able to follow a New York Times journalist directly from her byline, tweet about a video without leaving YouTube, and discover new Twitter accounts while visiting the Yahoo home page," Twitter said on its blog.

'Different approach'

The social network has not said when the service will launch, but said that it had already partnered with YouTube, Microsoft Bing and eBay amongst others.

Developers can already add Twitter functionality to their sites using a so-called API (application programming interface).

APIs are a set of tools offered by a firm to allow people outside the company to access and manipulate data held about their users.

They have become increasingly common amongst web firms to extend their reach beyond their own website.

Twitter said that @anywhere was a "different approach" that would be simpler for many sites to use.

This "open" approach to third-party developers allowed Twitter to grow at a phenomenal rate in its early days.

Recent data shows that traffic to Twitter's websites has levelled off since the middle of 2009.

However, measurements of Twitter use is very difficult as many users interact with the service through desktop software and mobile phones.

Source: BBC News