14 DAY TRIAL // If the recent changes haven't made Facebook enough like Twitter, a new app might, as the social network may be developing its own in-house Twitter app allowing users to send tweets from Facebook. This is nothing more than speculation for the moment but Inside Facebook spotted a tweet coming from Facebook engineer Blake Ross, one of the founders of Firefox actually, posted with an application called “Penguin FB.”
What's even more strange is that the tweet has since been deleted, though it can still be found using Twitter search. The tweet just said “test,” but it came from mgummelt.devrs008.facebook.com, an internal Facebook development server. Still, this is far from enough information to conclude that Facebook is really working on an official Twitter app, though all we know for now is that there is an application that can post to Twitter on one of Facebook's servers.
It may very well be an experimental app or a personal project but if indeed Facebook is working on Twitter integration this could be big news. The company has already taken a lot of steps in becoming more like Twitter, by changing its design layout and emphasizing status updates. Recently Facebook has also become more open, encouraging users to share more publicly with new default privacy options. All of these moves aren't coincidences or an unrelated shift in strategy; they are clear signs that Facebook is seeing Twitter's success as a potential threat and it isn't going to stand by while the micro-blogging site steals more attention and users.
There are already a number of third-party apps and even an official one from Twitter that allow users to tweet from Facebook but an official one from the latter could easily see the social network becoming one of the biggest sources for Twitter; however, for the time being Facebook isn't saying anything.