Twitter announced this week that it has launched Twitter for Windows Phone to make the microblogging site available to all Windows Phone 7 users.
Twitter for Windows Phone gives users access to timelines, suggested users, messages, lists and site navigation via their devices. The interface – called Metro – is supposedly user-friendly, boasting new "Pivots" that let Windows Phone users swipe through page-like components of the app to view different categories. These Pivots may make it easy for brands offering frequent tweet updates about their fields to be easily found according to industry.
The application can help marketers stay connected to their Twitter followers on the go, and it may also help them find mobile followers beyond their traditional Twitter audience. With Twitter for Windows Phone, the company explains that mobile users can explore Twitter without logging into the site, enabling those who don't have accounts to get news from the site in-real time.
In this sense, it's similar to Twitter's Fast Follow, which Brafton reported was launched last summer. Fast Follow allows mobile users – with or without Twitter accounts – to create lists of Twitter accounts they want to receive updates from via phone.
The Twitter for Windows Phone development should be good news to social and mobile marketers looking to boost brand awareness. ComScore's Mobile Subscriber market report for August 2010 indicates that Microsoft accounts for 10.8 percent of the smartphone platform market, reaching more than 25 million Americans. The much-anticipated Windows Phone 7 could help increase its share – and marketers should consider that it may also boost Bing as a mobile web browser.
