Twitter announced, via their blog, that they will soon be integrating a new platform called @anywhere which will allow interaction between websites and Twitter across the Internet. Partners in this endeavor will include Amazon, the Huffington Post, Yahoo!, YouTube, and others.
Simultaneous with the announcement on the blog was the keynote by Twitter CEO Ev Williams who demonstrated how the @anywhere platform will work. The demonstration, which took place live at South by Southwest (SXSW) in Texas, included a showcase of how it would work with, say, The Huffington Post where Twitter users would not only be able to comment on articles, but also follow the columnist or tweet directly from the website.
Mashable was also at SXSW and saw his keynote and mentioned another tidbit Williams let drop: Twitter does not plan to allow itself to be acquired by anyone for at least two more years. It’s been obvious that other Web giants like Google or Facebook might see Twitter as a highly desirable acquisition, so it appears they’re SOL.
More details on how the @anywhere setup works were available on PCWorld, where the new platform was compared to Facebook Connect – and not favorably for Twitter.
The reasoning behind the new setup may be more than what is being let on, though. The new @anywhere plan may not be to just build interactivity and information sharing amongst Twitter users, but more to bring in the ability to serve advertisements from trusted partners over the Twitter network. Since, in order to use the @anywhere API on your site you’ll be required to use special coding from Twitter, this may be a doorway into serving advertising as well.
Time will tell. The new feature is planned to launch in the next few months.
