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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.

Tim Bray is best known as the co-inventor of XML and for his blogging on his website at TBray.org.  Google has hired him as a “Developer Advocate” to promote and maintain the developers who interact with Google on the Android platform.  Blogging about it on his site, Bray rants against Apple and the iPhone platform:

The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.

I hate it.

I hate it even though the iPhone hardware and software are great, because freedom’s not just another word for anything, nor is it an optional ingredient.

With Android gaining ground on the iPhone as the two become the two largest rivals in smart phones, the inclusion of Bray at Google to work on further promoting the APIs for the various Android sets, and this direct attack on Apple’s closed-circuit development process may be just a marketing ploy, but it’s a good one.

Apple’s recent moves against app makers and removal of some iPhone apps they thought “questionable” from the AppStore brought controversy and, as CNet points out, gave Google with their long-running “No-Evil Zone” motto a big opening to compete with the rival smart phone maker.

Bray specifically hates the “closed system of development” for the iPhone and Business Insider predicts that Bray will be doing all he can to “destroy” that model.

While it’s questionable whether any one person (or anything, for that matter) can take down the Apple iPhone Juggernaut, it’s likely that this could be a large boost to Google’s Android platform and likely the Nexus One specifically.

Market competition is good, so whatever the outcome here, the power of competition will probably help both rivals bring out the best in themselves.

With all of the buzz about the new Apple iPad, the new HP Slate has been a little overlooked.  This new device from Hewlett Packard will run Windows 7 and, of course, Adobe’s Flash.  The video also captures the on-screen keyboard, showcases how the hardware-accelerated Flash speeds up performance, and also shows that AIR applications will also run on the Slate.

Little is offered from HP on the technology underneath the hood of this device, but it’s obvious that HP knows where it’s strengths lie: it’s not an Apple and it runs Flash and AIR.  So despite its lackluster debut at Microsoft’s CES, where all the Slate could do was run the Kindle Windows app, the Slate is definitely aimed directly at the iPad-disappointment crowd, who epxected a little more from Apple’s first touch pad computer.

Here’s the commercial from HP showing the square-off between devices:

If that makes no sense to you, don’t worry.  You’re not alone.  I’ve seen Super Bowl ads that were more sensical than that.

Nonetheless, the marketing video and gadget-showcase from HP show that the tablet market is set to really heat up this year, with four contenders currently in the game.  Fun!

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO, did a live interview at Search Marketing Expo West in California (transcript here).  He said several things that have a lot of people asking a lot of questions and making more than a few conjectures too.  The recent deal with Yahoo! that has received the OK from the European Union and will begin rolling out over the next year plus the question of who’s talking to who at Twitter are hot topics right now.

Ballmer’s remarks on the deal with Yahoo! made it clear that Microsoft wants to roll forward with their advertising and integration, through Bing, quickly.  At the same time, CNBC interviewed Yahoo’s CEO, Carol Bartz, and pointedly asked her not only about the attempted buyout by Microsoft (for which Bartz was not CEO or even at Yahoo), but about whether she would entertain another MS offer today.  Her answer to the latter?  “Sure.”

Now the question there is whether Microsoft would be amenable to offering another buyout.  With Yahoo’s stock down to around the $15 mark per share, it could be a bargain for the Seattle Giant, who offered $33/share a couple of years ago.  The new question now would be whether MS would gain much from the purchase, since Bing is already beat that double-digit market share on its own.

Speaking of that, much of the conversation during the Q&A with Ballmer centered on Bing’s growth and, of course, the search giant: Google.  Ballmer was willing to give props to Google for “getting it right first.”  His implication, obviously, being that being first doesn’t necessarily make them best anymore, but it does give them the King of the Mountain status (for now).

Now for Twitter.  During the interview, the MS CEO was asked about Twitter.  Here’s his resposne to that, which you can judge for yourself:

Q: You mentioned Twitter. Buy them, should you be buying them? Should you get them out there, they’ve got that great data, shouldn’t you just own the whole company and have it out there?

STEVE BALLMER: Not clear. I mean, we have a great relationship and partnership with Twitter. Not clear to me. I mean, I would hate to not have that partnership. Whether we need to own the company or not I think is far less clear. In some senses, as an independent, they have a lot of value and a lot of credibility, I think, with their user community. Would they have that same credibility with the user community if they were captive? Not clear. And they want to be an independent company, which means we want to have a great partnership with them, and do a good job.

Coming from that outspoken CEO, a non-answer like that says volumes.  Obviously, partnership or buyout are just as good as far as Microsoft is concerned.

We must live in the 21st Century.  Johnathan Schwartz, now the former CEO of Sun Microsystems, resigned from his post last night by tweeting a Haiku.  His resignation is the final step in the total absorption of Sun into Oracle, which purchased Sun last week.

This is Schwartz’s tweet, the first-ever resignation by Twitter from a Fortune 200 company CEO:

An interesting way to resign, for sure, but some of Sun’s former employees and critics have rebuttals.  Eric Savitz at Barrons found this one from a Yahoo! forum, which is quite funny:

Sorry, Jonathan / Don’t blame the economy / Blame poor leadership

The ponytailed CEO had an interesting career as the leader of Sun.  He was kind of a love or hate figure, with people galvanized on both sides of the spectrum. Most believe that his initiative to move Sun from paid to open source software with revenues focused instead on the hardware around the software is what finally sunk the company into sell-off.  The scheme, while innovative, appears to have not been well thought out or executed.

Schwartz was also very fond of social media, blogging regularly and tweeting often.  In fact, originally his resignation was explained via his blog and the above tweet was sent as his last gesture as Sun’s CEO.  When most chief executives are loathe to expose themselves to any kind of ridicule or possible lawsuits, this one took the opposite approach and welcomed an open style of management.

Whatever you think of his management and leadership style, one thing that Jonathan Schwartz has that has to be respected is his embracing of social media and outreach.  He’s one of the few CEOs to have used it as a public relations tool without it coming off as a stiff-necked marketing stunt.

Twitter has changed how new users just signing up find others on the app.  Rather than the old, random, Suggested User list of (mostly) celebrities, Twitter has installed a new Suggestions list based on topics.  The change was officially announced on the Twitter blog today.

Each of about twenty categories (including Books, Fashion, Tech, and the like) has a floating list of users that Twitter keeps track of.  Active users are Twitter are categorized by the subject matter of their posts and their activity level.  Those who are most active in each category will be featured.  The list is dynamic, so whoever’s there today might not be tomorrow.

Current memes, such as Haiti (the current one), are created by the staff as well, so that users can more easily find news and relevant information.  These are hand-picked by the staff of Twitter and will change as the news stream shifts with new events.

TechCrunch, of course, likes the new changes, but laments the new inability to mass follow those on the lists that come up.  At least they disclose that this is because they’re on the Suggested User list (under Technology).  So far, no word from Ashton Kutcher, but I’m sure he hates this new development.

Interestingly, Tumblr came out with something very similar to the new Twitter Suggested User list on their site as well.  It doesn’t seem to be as well thought out, however.  As Andrew Mager on ZDNet points out, though, anything is an improvement when it comes to linking social media users.  Especially when compared to the old “surf and hunt fruitlessly for an hour or just give up” choices.