With its new @Anywhere framework, Twitter has taken a critical step to link itself to the rest of the online world.
The new feature offers a way for Twitter partner sites, such as media outlets and online retailers, to pull in Twitter links and tap into the 50 million "tweets" posted every day.
Twitter CEO Evan Williams unveiled @Anywhere during a keynote speech Monday at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi) in Austin. At the same time a blog post on Twitter's site provided more details, describing @Anywhere as "a new set of frameworks for adding this Twitter experience anywhere on the Web.
"Soon, sites many of us visit every day will be able to recreate these open, engaging interactions, providing a new layer of value for visitors without sending them to Twitter.com," the Twitter blog said.
Using @Anywhere, Twitter subscribers can send and receive short messages while they are browsing other Web sites. Hovering a cursor over a New York Times reporter's byline, for example, would bring up Twitter information and let users connect with their Twitter accounts. Users can find relevant tweets, follow people and post their own tweets without leaving the site they are visiting.
At the SXSWi conference, Williams said Twitter has 13 launch partners for @Anywhere: AdvertisingAge, Amazon.com, Bing, Citysearch, Digg, eBay, The Huffington Post, Meebo, MSNBC, The New York Times, Salesforce.com, Yahoo and YouTube.
Third-party sites only have to "drop in a few lines of Javascript" to enable the @Anywhere feature, the blog said. Williams, however, did not provide details about any financial arrangements with the launch partners or reveal much about how @Anywhere might generate revenue for Twitter.
It also wasn't clear just how soon the @Anywhere feature would be available.
With the new capability, Twitter appears to be following a strategy similar to Facebook and its Facebook Connect feature. Launched two years ago, Facebook Connect is used by some 80,000 third-party sites.
Before the @Anywhere announcement there had been speculation that Williams might unveil some form of advertising platform that could compete with Google.
