The site has announced that it is starting to trial a 're-tweet button' on a small percentage of accounts. If it is rolled out across all accounts it is likely that there will be much more 're-tweeting' of news and opinion, which could reach levels even higher than in the recent Jan Moir and Trafigura cases.

At present users have to manually copy and paste status updates, but the feature would allow users to do this at a click of a button. This could mean that re-tweeting becomes much more widespread, with a higher volume of re-tweets and even bigger 'Twitter uprisings' than we have seen so far.

Twitter founder Biz Stone said on the Twitter Blog: "The plan is to see how it goes first with this small release. If it needs more work, then we'll know right away. If things look good, we'll proceed with releasing the feature in stages eventually arriving at 100%."

He added: "We hope interesting, newsworthy, or even just plain funny information will spread quickly through the network making its way efficiently to the people who want or need to know."

Screenshots of the new feature that is being tested can be found on the Marketing Shindig blog.

Twitter's new re-tweet feature is being tested on a small percentage of accounts. Image: Marketing Shindig

Bing's real-time twitter search launched after Microsoft agreed a deal with twitter

Twitter has announced deals with both Microsoft Bing and Google allowing them to include real-time tweets in their search results.

Co-founder Biz Stone announced the link up on the company's blog revealing Bing's new Twitter search facility.

He said: "While Twitter currently presents tweets based simply on timeliness, Bing is experimenting with new solutions such as 'best match.' We hope more working relationships with organizations in the search business will mean even more variety for users."

Microsoft confirmed the deal saying: "Twitter give us access to public opinion and thoughts in a way that has not before been possible. From important social and political issues to keeping friends up to date on the minute-by-minute of our daily lives, the web is getting more and more real time."

The variety for users did not take long to materialise, when soon after twitter revealed its deal with Google. The site's other co-founder Evan Williams blogged: "We've partnered with Google to index the entire world of public tweets as fast as possible and present them to their users in an organized and relevant fashion."

The announcement comes a day after Evan Williams awkwardly avoided questions about possible deals with Microsoft and Google at the Web 2.0 Summit 2009. Williams had admitted that twitter's current search facility was "pretty primitive as searches go."

The deals are positive for journalists as developments from the search engines will hopefully make it easier to filter tweets and find information.

Twitter proudly invited users to 'just try out' Bing's twitter search right away at http://www.bing.com/twitter, however when I tried this evening I was told "Twitter search results are currently available." Maybe its more of an evolution than a revolution after all.