Amazon's latest service, AmazonCart, allows Twitter users to add products to their Amazon.com shopping cart with a single tweet, the online retailer announced today.
Twitter users can reply to a tweet containing an Amazon product link with the hashtag #AmazonCart (that's in the U.S.; in the U.K., the hashtag is #AmazonBasket). If they've already connected their Amazon account to their Twitter account in their Amazon settings, the item will be added to their cart, and they'll receive a Twitter reply and an email confirming that. If they haven't connected Twitter to Amazon, they'll receive a reply asking them to do so.
The process doesn't involve a transaction of any kind; customers still have to visit Amazon to check out and complete the purchase. And Amazon users who have connected their accounts to Twitter can choose to disable AmazonCart. With the feature, Amazon seems to be aiming to encourage companies and individuals to direct fans to Amazon by tweeting product links, and to encourage people to make public purchase recommendations on Twitter.