Twitter tie-up with Amazon lets you tweet shop

Technology giants Twitter and Amazon are getting together to supposedly simplify your shopping

Users of both companies now have the option to link their accounts.

Then if you see something mentioned on Twitter that you want to buy, you can use a hashtag to automatically save that item to your online shopping basket and go to your Amazon account later to confirm the purchase and pay for it.

Amazon obviously hopes to make social media a bigger source of sales. It is not clear what Twitter gets from this as it does not receive any direct revenue from purchases.

It is now live in Britain and the US, with other countries to follow.

One potential downside — everyone who is following you on Twitter could see what you are buying using this system.