Today are launching the really useful TweetMeme Twitter Follow Button, this feature will help you and your readers to find and follow one another on Twitter!  The button has been designed for simplicity and comes in three styles as shown below.  The Follow button does not redirect the user to Twitter it instead uses the Twitter OAuth access just like our ReTweet button.

The Follow Button also has a live counter so that you can see visually if the user is worth following just based upon the count and matches the style and ability of the TweetMeme ReTweet button.  The Follow button also knows who you are already following and shows the + sign to remind you to add the new users that you discover through the Follow Button.  After all it is also a comfort to know yes, I am already following them, or how did I forget to follow this user! I must add them!

Compact: 

Normal:

Square:

Once clicked on the follow button provides you with the following features:

• Twitter Profile Picture
• Real Name
• Twitter Username
• Twitter profile description
• Following / Follower Count
• Recent Links that have been retweeted

The button also integrates with three of the most popular Twitter user profiling systems to provide you with some great additional user analysis tools to help you decide whether you want to follow people.

Twitter Counter

Twitter Counter is a great way to visually understand how a Twitter user is gaining extra followers.

Twitalyzer

Twitalyzer lets you at a glance see how a Twitter user interacts, giving simple metrics on Engagement, Impact and Influence.

Twitter Grader

Twitter Grader takes a Twitter and compares you with every other Twitter user based upon power and reach and gives you a overall grade.

Alongside the new button which is currently available as Javascript for you to embed into your site, we have also created a WordPress Plugin and anticipate other plugins will follow.  The WordPress plugin is designed to dramatically increase the scope of the follow button by improving the take up by the ‘long tail’.

The plugin is an easy opportunity for users to use the button.  The plugin provides 3 useful features, the biggest of which is the ability to replace the standard comment avatar with a follow button. We also add in a WordPress sidebar widget and the ability to add the follow button to posts on a per-author basis.

Sidebar Widget

Settings

Sometime in February our Retweet Button passed the 100,000 mark in website installs. We launched the Retweet Button back in February 2009 – so we have achieved this milestone in 12 months. We also peaked at 300 million retweet buttons served in one day (thanks to the iPad) and in the last 30 days we have served over 7 Billion buttons.

We are very proud to have some of the biggest brands on the internet using our services below are just a few of them.

Flash

I would also like to single out one company that has taken us into a whole new Arena, BREAK.COM worked with us to produce the very first Flash based Retweet Button, this has been a massive success for them increasing retweets by a factor of five. Look out for more innovation in this space.

New Functionality

To mark our milestone we are launching two really important bits of functionality that allow even more customization of the Tweets that are generated.

The first is HASHTAGS – we have long wanted to allow users to be able to tag each button so that users searching for relevant articles have a chance of finding them. You can now add one (or more) tags and we will automatically append them to the Tweet while still keeping within the 140 Character Limit. We are also pushing out an update today of our ever popular WordPress Plugin that adds automatic support for taking your WordPress TAGS and adding them to the Tweet Text.

Secondly we have added the ability to pre-allocate space at the end of the Tweet, it is a well known fact that Links get retweeted more when space is left at the end of the Tweet to then allow the next person to add the RT @[twitter_name] to the beginning, so from now on by default the Tweet will leave 19 characters, this can be overridden to give more or less space.

Both pieces of new functionality work on all our variants of the Button (Web, RSS, Mobile) and you can get all the details on HashTags and Tweet Space – or our main Button help page here.

Feature List

For those unaware of all the great abilities our button has here is a quick run-down on what makes us unique

• The Biggest and recognized Retweet Brand
• Installed on 100,000+ websites worldwide
• The best User + Publisher Retweet Experience
• 100% accurate retweet counts
• Support for 15 Different URL Shorteners
• Web, RSS, Email and Mobile support
• New support for HashTags + Whitespace

TweetMeme has been chosen by a judging panel including Deborah Meaden and other leading entrepreneurs such as Bebo Founder Michael Birch as a winner of Smarta.com’s inaugural ‘Smarta 100’.

The Smarta 100 is the ultimate business accolade, recognizing the UK’s smartest small businesses. Smarta.com has uncovered remarkable companies who have gone the extra mile to differentiate themselves from the market or found clever ways to compete, from their marketing plan to their ethical stance. The result is a fascinating insight into the unique business ideas that are thriving in the current economic climate.

The finalists proved to the judges that they have what it takes to run a successful venture, from spotting a new opportunity to making it a reality. And the high-profile panel were delighted to see that ambitious people are saving hard and raising finances to turn their ideas into flourishing businesses.

Deborah Meaden commented:

“Discovering great new businesses is a passion of mine as is encouraging businesses to think and work better.  The Smarta 100 does both of these things – and celebrates the best of British business at the same time. I was delighted to see ambitious people saving hard and raising finances to turn their ideas into flourishing businesses ”

Smarta.com founder Sháá Wasmund said:

“Socially conscious, disruptive businesses that are not afraid to challenge the status quo are being set up in the four corners of the country. I founded Smarta to make sure these enterprises are supported at any stage of development. The results speak for themselves – the Smarta 100 list is a collection of remarkable success stories.”

The full results and details of the winning companies can be found at smarta.com/smarta100.

Recently we’ve been working hard adding a range of new TweetMeme channels to our site.  Since there’s always a lot of events on throughout the year we have been creating some for the big events of the year.  Here are some of the latest channels that we’ve created for current and upcoming events:

3 GSM – Providing the top stories from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

The Brit Awards – Covering hte news, stories, nominations and winners of the Brit Awards 2010.

Winter Olympics – Picking up the top stories, news and medalists from this year’s winter Olympics in Vancouver.

The Oscars - The top stories, nominations and award winners due to be announced in March 2010.

Mother’s Day – Bringing together some great Mother’s Day ideas from across the Internet.

We will continue to add new channels including events channels throughout the year.  If you want your event to have it’s very own custom channel on TweetMeme or integrated with your own site then please do contact us to arrange this.