The carbon footprint of Twitter users is set to be dramatically reduced after the social networking site began integrating a simple "retweet" button to save users having to exert the extra energy necessary to type the letters "RT".

 

Retweeting is when users can share interesting tweets made by people they follow, with their own following, using the syntax RT.

 

The upheaval is being tested on a limited number of accounts to judge its success before being rolled out across the microblog, probably next year. Users of third party Twitter portals like Tweetmeme already have access to the feature, but this is the first time users of Twitter.com can access the feature.

 

- Exclusive: Stephen Fry says Twitter should stay simple

- Follow T3 on Twitter

- Sign up for the free T3 Newsletter

 

Co-founder Biz Stone wrote on the company's blog: "We've just activated a feature called retweet on a very small percentage of accounts in order to see how it works in the wild.

 

"Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet to all your followers very easy. In turn, we hope interesting, newsworthy, or even just plain funny information will spread quickly through the network making its way efficiently to the people who want or need to know."

 

Let us know if your account has been upgraded, and make sure you start following T3 onTwitter.

 

Link: Twitter (via CNET)