Twitter has dipped its toe into the waters of business accounts on the microblogging service, saying Monday it would be allowing an account to be tweeted to buy multiple twitter accounts in the near future. Called “Contributors,” those particpating would be given a small byline acknowledgement at the end of the tweet.
The service says the move allows businesses to make these corporate tweets more personable by letting the reader know who is behind the company. However, the new functionality is not ready for public consumption, so its release will only be limited to a select group of business users and partners. Use of Contributors after the beta period ends looks to be limited to business-centric accounts and partners, so no allowing your girlfriend to tweet for you when this is ready for prime time.
Contributors is apparently only one of several features that the company is working on, although it is not being specific on what the others may be. In any case, this seems a natural move for the company considering so many businesses are turning to the service in order to reach out to their customers.
While some may wonder why Twitter is seemingly stepping on the feet of its partners such as CoTweet, those partners are saying that’s not the case. In a blog post on Monday, CoTweet said that Twitter was committed to the success of its partner ecosystem and would not purposely do anything to disrupt those relationships.
“Businesses will continue to require functionality such as CoTweet’s advanced work flow and conversation history that allow them to engage in authentic, two-way dialogs with their customers and communities,” it argued. “There is a large area of opportunity between what Twitter will be offering and what businesses require.”