It is a single line of code that can be added to any website. There are three versions of the button (110x20, 55x20, 55x63) with five different settings for customization. In fact, we have embedded the default Tweet Button below. While the embed code in fact works, the actual act of retweeting an article is not possible for most users, including us. According to our sources, only a few accounts currently have that ability activated:
The company that is most likely to be affected by this development is Tweetmeme, which powers most of the retweet buttons you see on websites and blogs across the web, including Mashable.
Twitter could be directly competing with Tweetmeme, but we think it's unlikely that Twitter would just spring this product on the world without talking to Tweetmeme first. We believe it's likely the two companies have a deal, but don't know what it would look like as of yet.
We have reached out to Twitter for comment. In the meantime though, we have included the documents and the code for embedding Tweet Buttons below. We'll update this post with more details as the story develops.