Just as the SXSW conference in Austin a few years saw the launch of a service that has had an incredible impact on our Web we could see a repeat again this year with Twitter’s announcement of its new @anywhere platform.
Curiously just as we barely had an idea of what Twitter was then or how it would bring about a fundamental change in how we communicate on the web next to nothing is known about @anywhere.
Even though there is a post about the new platform on the Twitter blog it really says very little so we are best to go by what Frederic Lardinois writes over at ReadWriteWeb to try and understand what it is about:
The new platform, for example, will allow users to identify and follow Twitter users on third-party sites without leaving the third-party site. Some of the sites that will soon use this new service include Amazon, Yahoo, Digg, Bing and the New York Times. This, according to Evan, will allow publishers to make sure that their audience is aware of their Twitter feeds, and allow users to follow a site’s or columnist’s feed without every having to leave the site. According to Williams, this will allow publishers to find more followers, and it will also allow Twitter to bring in more users to the site as well as make more non-Twitter users aware of the service.
Even with that bit of information it is still really hard to read the tea leaves as to what Twitter has up its sleeve when it comes to @anywhere.
Yet, for some reason, which I really can’t put words to, I have a gut feeling we are looking at yet another game changer. I have absolutely no direct knowledge of what @anywhere is about or how it will work but I just can’t shake the feeling that there is something really big going on here.
Everyone might be carrying on about all this location crap and some imaginary war that is going on but I have a feeling that what Twitter announced today will have a far greater impact that any silly location game cum advertisers wet dream.
