Amazon's collaboration with Twitter could pave the way for consumers to shop the online retailer's inventory through other social media networks.
"We are certainly open to working with other social networks," An Amazon spokeswoman told CNET. "Twitter in particular offers a great environment for our customers to discover product recommendations from artists, experts, brands and friends."
According to Amazon's website, Twitter users can connect their accounts to the online retailer's product inventory. Consumers then send a tweet with the hashtag #AmazonCart upon viewing an item on the company's Twitter feed they want to purchase. This adds the item to the customer's cart on the company's website. Consumers can then complete their shopping another time.
According to TIME, the cart can carry multiple items. The Internet retailer's @MyAmazon Twitter account sends a confirmation to customers when new items are put into the online basket.
"We had 3.3 billion views of tweets just about the Oscars in the 48 hours after the Oscars," Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said in a first-quarter earnings conference call May 2. "Now that's a big number. If you think about that in the context of something like YouTube, where you've got YouTube content networks with thousands of channels, some of the biggest of which that will achieve over 3 billion views a month -- I think we'd all consider YouTube a mainstream platform, and we saw that around the Oscars in just 2 days."
Costolo said he hoped Twitter users would be able to fully utilize the social media platform beyond the app's current offerings.
"So Twitter as a platform is already incredibly mainstream. And now what we need to do is help that world of users who already experience Twitter every day understand the value, the increased value of the log-in experience," Costolo stated.
According to the Associated Press, approximately 255 million people used the social media network at the end of March.
