Friday, August 28, 2009

Tweetmeme launches V2 - Embraces JS-Kit ECHO

There's simply no disputing that Tweetmeme has been one of the fastest growing services to make use of the Twitter API.

It's safe the say the small company redefined 'retweeting', a vehicle that many Twitter users use to direct attention to a specific earlier 'Tweet'.


The Tweetmeme 'button' can now be seen on literally thousands of blogs. 

Twitter didn't miss the buzz either and announced the beginning of their own retweet project a couple of weeks ago.

A few hours ago, Tweetmeme launched 'V2' (or Version 2) announcing on the Tweetmeme blog: "today’s release really is a complete revamp of the site that encompasses a total rewrite of our scoring system, filtering engine and a whole raft of user interface enhancements and tweaks" .

The blog post also noted that Tweetmeme is now working with JS-Kit's ECHO commenting system with the intent of  "recommending and distributing Echo as the preferred solution to track the distributed conversation on blogs".

While Disqus, Backtype and combinations of other existing services already provide similar functionality, the intent here apparently is to send the traffic back to blogs, many of which have lost page views to their own RSS feeds, feed readers, and other open distribution methods.


Will more blogs continue to add the Tweetmeme button at today's (or a faster) pace?

Probably.

Will a marriage with JS-Kit's ECHO work?  The jury is probably still out on this although it's certainly a thought provoking development.

One thing we know for sure.  With Friendfeed's recent sale to Facebook, a lot of developers will be looking at Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others for ways to monetize existing products with a heavy buzz ... and ....   there will continue to be some heavy competition.

Stay tuned :)