Twitter extends ties with Facebook and LinkedIn

Twitter has announced an extension to its Facebook and LinkedIn applications that allows users to import 'friends' to a Twitter stream direct from the social sites.

The company claimed that the new options will make it easier to import 'friends' from other social sites.

"One of our most frequent requests from users is how they can find and follow the people they are connected to on their social networks," said Josh Elman, a product manager at Twitter, in a blog post.

"Today, we're improving our Find Friends section to make it easier to follow people you already know.

"Our Facebook app now shows which of your Facebook friends are on Twitter and lets you follow them instantly and save them to a list. The app also lets you post your tweets to your Facebook profile and pages."

Elman explained that the Tweets application on LinkedIn allows users to see which connections are on Twitter and follow the ones they choose right from the app.

"The app also lets you save your LinkedIn connections as a list, post your Tweets to LinkedIn, and add your Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile," he said.

However, the application is currently unavailable on Facebook. Elman updated his blog post to say that he believes the issue is with Facebook, not Twitter.

Facebook said that it is working with Twitter to resolve the issue, but it remains unclear whether it is a technology or policy issue behind the failure.