Ev Williams took the stage for todays SXSW keynote to discuss twitters newest change. There were rumor abound that Tiwtter would finally announce an Ad Platform to generate non-search engine revenue for the first time. However, Ev and the Twitter team have taken another route. Twitter announced a new platform they are calling @anywhere to integrate Twitter into our online lives even more than it is already.
The new @anywhere platform will allow sites to add a couple of lines of simple javascript to enable a wide range of, and still largely undefined, uses. Ev Williams uses the example of The New York Times allowing readers to follow columnists directly from the Author byline. The list of initial partners can be seen below:
Twitters initial list of Partners for Launch of @anywhere
The opporunities for just these types of sites to integrate Twitter is enormous. The true advantage of implementing @anywhere is eliminating “friction” of discovery. By allowing immediate follows directly from the page, @anywhere eliminates the need to:
- remember the authors name
- go to Twitter
- hope there is no fail whale
- search for the persons name
- hope for no fail whale
- sort through results
- click on profile
- finally click to follow
@anywhere Eliminates all but the last step. This will reduce barriers to entry as the discovery phase is one of the largest hurdles for any new Twitter user. Ev says, “There’s something interesting on Twitter for everybody. But not everybody knows that.”
Another major factor of @anywhere is the “Facebook Connect” angle. Twitter is positioning @anywhere as an OpenID type of log-in. So as Facebook takes cues from Twitter (live stream), now Twitter is taking cues from a page in the Facebook (get it?).
The true impact of @anywhere will be somewhat limited while it is confined to the initial partners, but I expect it to grow rapidly and likely increase Twitters impact on media and how we consume our data in todays age.
Leave comments and let us know your thoughts on how you think this all might play out.