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​Twitter 'Buy now' button pops up on mobile

A temporary test may provide a glimpse into the social network's e-commerce future.

Donna Tam Staff Writer / News
Donna Tam covers Amazon and other fun stuff for CNET News. She is a San Francisco native who enjoys feasting, merrymaking, checking her Gmail and reading her Kindle.
Donna Tam
2 min read

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Several tweets featuring a "Buy now" button underneath product images surfaced temporarily on Twitter, Recode reported Monday.

The tweets, which no longer appear in the form captured by Recode, gave a possible glimpse into Twitter's plans for creating a new revenue revenue source. So far, the social media site has relied on sponsored tweets, essentially advertising, to make money, but Wall Street wants more.

The series of tweets showcased products from Fancy, a social media site that includes links to retailers. Searching for the tweets, CNET found that the purchase button has been replaced by a "Get Fancy app" button. We've contacted Twitter and will update if we hear back.

Plenty of social media sites, including Fancy, are trying their hands at social shopping. Remember Facebook's failed Facebook Gifts? The online store that let users send physical gifts through their timelines ultimately flopped. Other social media sites, like the fashion-centric Polyvore, have long had a buy button attached to users' postings. The image-heavy site has found success in this model.

While Twitter's text-friendly form may seem less likely to attract shoppers, the interest from brands has been growing. Startup Chirpify has been running shopping campaigns on several social media sites, including Twitter, allowing users to purchase items by simply tweeting a keyword.

Amazon stirred up some interest earlier this year when it launched a similar shopping feature on Twitter. The e-commerce giant now lets users put things in their shopping carts by tweeting #AmazonCart in response to any tweets with an Amazon product link.

It's unclear if the purchase button will be become a regular occurrence on Twitter. The company is clearly still very dedicated to its main revenue stream -- advertising -- given its recent acquisition of yet another mobile advertising firm.

CNET's Ian Sherr contributed to this report.