Feeling the web’s pulse: Twitter-related buttons replacing buttons from other sites and social networks

As Twitter keeps growing in popularity, more websites are getting “Twitter friendly”.  Whether this is adding a follow me button or ways to Tweet out the content, the web is getting more “Twittified”.  But where is the real news, you might ask?  Well when you put it that way, nothing here is “news”.  However, I think it’s sometimes healthy to take a step back from the hugeness of YouTube, new search engine launches, and social network acquisitions and take a look at trends on the web.

The fact that just two years ago, all the rage was to add Delicious and Digg buttons is evidence enough of how fast the web moves.  But you probably knew that already.  What’s interesting, though, is that Twitter buttons have begun to replace social buttons from other sites as the most prominent buttons on the web.  Now that is real change.  When your social network was all the rage two years ago but now it might not even get a button on blogs across the web, it’s telling of not only how quickly the web moves, but also how fickle the web is: people are ready to hop on to the next new thing and leave whatever it is they were using before.

Twitter-related buttons can be prominently seen in many places on the web now, especially on blogs – where it’s easy to implement with plugins and embeddable code.  But let me emphasize one last thing: I’m not saying that Twitter-related buttons are replacing buttons from other sites.  What I am saying is that Twitter-related buttons are replacing buttons from other sites as the most prominent, top-most, brightest social button on the web.  Take TNR, for example: we have a fairly large ReTweet button right at the top of our posts.  Readers can still Digg, Reddit, BuzzUp, add to Facebook, and even email our posts (as well as many other services) using the ShareThis link on the bottom of each post, but Twitter takes center stage.  What service will take center stage two years from now?  Talk to me in the comments!