Official Twitter Tweet Button coming this week

Twitter is gearing up to release an official Tweet Button for sharing articles on the web, and counting how many times a post has been tweeted, according to documents obtained by Mashable. The button could hit as soon as Thursday, August 12.

Up until now, services like Tweetmeme and Retweet.com have offered their own take on retweet buttons. That Twitter is finally aiming to offer a retweet button of its own comes as no surprise. Retweets have quickly become a popular way to share articles, and with the success of Facebook’s “Like” button, Twitter needs to have a quick sharing button all of its own.

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The button will be a line of code that can be added to any site, and will come in three versions — 110 by 20 pixels, 55 by 20 pixels, and 55 by 63 pixels –with five different customization options.

It will be interesting to see how this button affects Tweetmeme in particular, which is at this point the most popular way to offer a retweet counter/button on the web. In addition to its button, Tweetmeme’s website also aggregates the most popular stories being retweeted — making it something akin to news aggregator sites like Digg. Mashable assumes that the two companies may have arranged some sort of deal, and indeed that would be the easiest method for Twitter.

We’ve reached out to Tweetmeme for comment on the matter, and will report back with its response.