Twitter Preparing Official Tweet Buttons: Report

Twitter is planning to launch an official “Tweet” button this week, according to Mashable. The button will come in three forms, according to internal Twitter documents that Mashable has published.

When asked to confirm Mashable’s report and the authenticity of the internal documents, a Twitter spokesperson would only tell us, “Stay tuned.”

The button will be embeddable on any web page, and will show a comprehensive count of how many times the URL has been shared on Twitter. When using the button, the Twitter user never leaves the site where the button appears, according to the Twitter documentation.

Many sites already have buttons that allow visitors to tweet their content; those buttons typically come from Tweetmeme, a third-party, unofficial provider of Twitter sharing buttons.

But for Twitter, launching its own Tweet button is almost certainly more about Facebook and Google than it is about Tweetmeme. Earlier this year, Facebook launched a variety of social plugins to help spread Facebook connections and content across the web. Likewise, Google Buzz also launched its own buttons a few months ago. For Twitter, an announcement of its own sharing button seems to be a given in terms of catching up to the competition.

There’s more discussion on Techmeme.