Twitter Announces New API for Integrated Retweet

Twitter co founder Biz Stone recently announced on the Twitter blog that they are all set to integrate retweets into the service and application programing interface. Currently the method of retweeting on twitter.com is a cumbersome process of copying and pasting. Project Retweet is in its Phase One in which Twitter would take feedback from the developer community on how will the API handle the process.

Twitter had published an update to its API documentation that includes new details on how various aspects of retweeting will work. It plans to roll out the to a limited segment of users to ensure that the service’s performance isn’t adversely affected.   In a few week Twitter would be launching the feature on our website. What’s more when the app developers are given a chance to prepare it should become available across most of the Twitter ecosystem about the same time.

Popularity of Twitter in part comes from its immediate response to and embrace user-invented features in the past with @replies and hashtags. It’s nice to see that it’s talking a similar route with retweets. Retweets can often be one of the most unclear aspects of Twitter for new users. Integrating it with other services can help to alleviate some of that initial confusion.

Let’s see what Twitter developer Marcel Molina wrote in the Twitter developer Google Group about the new API

Retweeting has become a cultural convention of the Twitter experience. It’s yet another example of Twitter’s users discovering innovative ways to use the service. We dig it. So soon it’s going to become a natively supported feature on twitter.com.