Early today, Twitter announced its first commercial product - the 'Buy' button. According to the New York Times, Twitter will be testing the button, which will be embedded in posts and will allow users to buy a product with just a click.  

Tech Crunch reports that the company began to have interest in the prospect last year, when it hired former Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard to lead its commerce team. They continued to hire commerce specialists, who in turn got the idea of a Buy Now button. According to Wired, "a small percentage" of US Twitter users will start seeing the Buy button today, and the percentage will grow as time passes.

The button works as follows: if a customer finds something they want to purchase on Twitter, they hit the Buy button, which allows users to enter payment and shipping information and complete the transaction in mere seconds. The New York Times reports that the feature was originally created to sell time-sensitive items like T-shirts or event tickets, but could actually create a new stream of revenue for Twitter. Currently, Twitter relies on advertising for almost all of its income.

Twitter has described the move as "an early step into our building functionality into Twitter to make shopping from mobile devices convenient and easy, hopefully even fun," further explaining the expansion of its commerce initiative.

Mobile e-commerce is a growing trade, and Twitter will be seeing some competition in the near future. According to the New York Times, Apple is expected to release a new phone-based payment system on Tuesday as part of an update to the iPhone.  Facebook has already begun to test a 'buy' button on its services, which emerged this past July.

Twitter is partnering with a number of companies in order to make the 'Buy' button happen. They include social shopping company Fancy, digital content seller Gumroad, and payments company Stripe. Initial sellers include musicians such as Demi Lovato and Eminem, and retailers like Burberry and the Home Depot.