For those who keep track of such things, Twitter usually gets buggy just before they release updates to their services.  So over the past week, as Twitter seemed particularly buggy and glitchy, users who are in-the-know began to speculate about a possible update.

The update Twitter released this week relates to the embeddable tweets product, now allowing embedded tweets to include more content.  Twitter is trying to urge users to avoid the practice of taking screen shots of tweets, especially when included in a post. But embedded tweets won’t just include more content, they’ll also include more context. This allows users to interact with Twitter from the embedded tweet itself — something users can’t do with a screen shot.

Twitter calls the update “more engaging, useful and fast”.  We call the update very smart on Twitter’s part.  Giving users incentive to engage directly, rather than taking screen shots of tweets and then posting them, will increase traffic and conversation to make Twitter more valuable long-term.

One of the most important parts of this update for content creators is an increase in the trustworthiness of content.  Doctoring a screen capture of a tweet is incredibly easy with Adobe CS.  With an embedded tweet however, you know the content is authentic and comes straight from the source it is credited to.  This makes blogs and articles that reference tweets more credible as well.   For people who frequently source content from Twitter, this update is a blessing.  People will no longer need to question their content and wonder if tweets are real.