One of the most effective ways to amplify your message on Twitter is to get your followers to retweet it to their followers. Retweeting is also becoming a popular way to pass links around Twitter. They are becoming the new currency of the Web because of the power of passed links. One service in particular, Tweetmeme, is cornering the market on retweets by making it easy for blogs and other sites to add a retweet button to every page. You can see one at the bottom of this post, or the one at right. Just click on it, and it will take you to your Twitter account and populate a message with a “RT,” the headline, and a short link. Go ahead, do it now. Do it again. Okay, thanks.
Lots of sites use Tweetmeme’s retweet button, and it drives a lot of its overall traffic. Nick Halstead, the CEO of Fav.or.it (Tweetmeme’s parent company) says that the buttons are so widespread right now that they are generating 196 million impressions a week month. In other words, that is how many pages load with the buttons every month week, and some portion of those result in actual retweets. Halstead is making some improvements to the retweet buttons. Before each retweet generated by the button would include a promotional “via @tweetmeme.” That has now removed to make more room for the actual headline and link. Next week he is going to introduce an image button which can be included in RSS feeds and emails to spread the retweet love even further. And sites will be able to embed a retweet counter to show how many overall retweets they get every week.
More importantly, the retweet buttons will begin supporting URL shortening service other than bit.ly, and will include an option for sites to choose their own custom short URL. (For instance, we use http://tcrn.ch). Tweetmeme will also offer analytics for site owners to see how their retweets are spreading. Basic data will be free, and Tweetmeme will likely charge for more detailed analyticss. All of this, of course, also turns into valuable data for Tweetmeme to determine the most popular links and stories on Twitter, and makes Tweetmeme itself a better news aggregation site.
Hi Erick,
It is actually 196 million button impressions a week, and 849 million button impressions per Month.
Fixed. Did you retweet this?
But of course! using the button
Damn this is STUPID!
Retweet, how lame!! Just shows you how lazy everyone is getting these days.
Why would you retweet this blog?? Why would you not tweet it instead… lame again!
Do any of these app makers know they are all gonna disappear when twitter starts making these options a standard on their site.
I think twitter needs to wake up!!! Why are they letting everyone else build functionality add-on for their platform???
They should be doing this on their own!! They or Google will NEVER make any money from this site if they do not change their ways.
Sure twitter can be sold for millions to Google, but what is Google going to do??
They (twitter/Google) need to add this functionality on their own and start charging premium fee’s
How about they give CSS control to the customization area. Adding a background that only works from the left hand side and moves left as the resolution becomes larger is LAME! It should be fixed center top.
Want to know what lame as well?? Those of you that add any graphics to the right hand side of your background on twitter. OMG LMAOROTF
Peace Out!
Twitter Sucks!
Who are you “Twitter Sucks”? I think you are any Web 2.0 company who got losses due to Twitter craze.
@Typhoon
Really? Damn you nailed it on the head. (NOT!)
Your reply explains the mask over your face. Don’t be ashamed, everyone knows your trying to hide some huge ass buck teeth and you talk like Elmer Phud!
As always, a reply from the (pea) NUT gallery but it is as useless as twitter……
I have lost nothing due to twitter. Maybe if you stop for a moment from adding more garbage to your Myspace page and whoring yourself out on facebook you would see that my comment above makes sense and that twitter really does suck!
I would like to be able to use custom headline assigned to a variable in javascript instead of the page’s title.
Too bad that their site lists only mashable and other social media spam. Pure RT count is useless.
The bloggers installing their Retweet button is their main advantage. How many of TechCrunch Readers have installed this on their blogs?
Tweetmeme needs to fix their ranking algorithms. I’m mostly using twittersphere.com these days but needless to say that they’re all prone to spam.
You should probably want to try http://www.boilingpage.com. I guess they have less spam compared to other services.
Tweetmeme’s API is pretty killer.
I love the direction they are taking with the way they are recording statistics for URL’s.
I have been analyzing data through their API and they are making all the right connections between users and urls.
They already appear to be the king of RT’s!
The new API is brilliant! it looks good and my fave thing about them now is the fact that everyone has been whitelisted with the latest version of tweetmeme. well done!
This sounds good to me. I use it on my blog and it works a treat. I have noticed that users retweet it because it makes it easy. I personally do think that it’s the best rtweeting service because I have used some others.
The reason I started using Tweetmeme was of the attractive button.
its amazing how much little things like the design of the button can influence the success of something.
Retweeted!
I’m wondering what is the real-time search delay ?
http://tweetmeme.com/search.php?for=tweetmeme&order=created_at_desc
http://www.oneriot.com/search?q=tweetmeme&st=web&ot=
http://microplaza.com/search?q=tweetmeme
I totally agree retweets are a powerful way to rank popularity of stories.
Problem is, it is highly Twitter-subject oriented, meaning stories about Twitter are being retweeted more regardless of the quality of the story.
I built a mashup presenting technology news from top technology blogs (including my favorite, Techcrunch) ranked by Retweets,
Mashable is the clear winner in terms of retweets of its stories, Techcrunch coming in at no. 2 (the mashup also ranks blogs and writters by retweet count).
It’s here:
http://rsstfeeder.appspot.com/
Enjoy
“and some portion of those result in actual retweets” , it’s results
Nice! just added… and retweeted this post
I have a question that TechCrunch can probably answer:
On the 3ft9 website ( http://3ft9.com/ ), it says that they helped develop Tweetmeme and Fav.or.it. This is more than likely true, just want to double check. A great story of a Freelance project (kind of like Digg and Kevin Rose).
Rate and express what you think about TweetMeme @ http://appuseful.com/app/n/TweetMeme . The app will be ranked according to your ratings!
The value of retweets derives from the fact that they signify endorsement of existing tweets that are somehow noteworthy.
TweetMeme retweets are all Tweet and no Re, which seems dilutive to the value of retweets.
They are like orphans. Perhaps they can be adopted by Tweets that never managed to generate any retweets?
I don’t like it as much because its always the same domains over and over again on the front page…..
unfortunately am still not able to get the button working on my blog, it comes up displaying ? on some of the posts…
anyways, the button is pretty famous now, and so is tweetmeme
I personally do think that it’s the best rtweeting service because I have used some others.
I retweeted. Didn’t want to let you down.