Twitter testing a 'buy button'

Twitter is testing a way for its users to purchase digital music and other products through the social networking application, with the goal of making mobile shopping easier, the company said in a blog post.

A "small percentage" of U.S. Twitter users will begin to see tweets including a "buy" button from some of the company's partners, group product manager Tarun Jain wrote in the blog post, published Monday. The percentage of Twitter users seeing the marketing tweets will grow over time, Jain wrote.

"This is an early step in our building functionality into Twitter to make shopping from mobile phones convenient and easy, hopefully even fun," Jain wrote.

Twitter's partners in the e-commerce effort include digital marketing companies Musictoday, Gumroad, Fancy and Stripe, Jain said.

The e-commerce test will include products from several musicians, including Brad Paisley, Eminem, Keith Urban, Megadeth, Pharrell Williams and Soundgarden. Other organizations featured will including Burberry, the Home Depot, the Nature Conservancy and DonorsChoose.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant's email address is grant_gross@idg.com.