Our own Jeff Cohen and Scott Piggott may be in the middle of all the SXSW action this week, but you don’t have to be in Austin to learn more about Twitter’s new @Anywhere platform. When Twitter talks, people listen: The new feature was announced around 3:30 p.m. EST, and less than 30 minutes later its @anywhere Twitter account has more than 3,500 followers.

The official announcement describes the platform as a framework that will seamlessly integrate into a Web site without requiring the implementation of APIs. The Twitter conversations – in all of their customer service, focus group, instant feedback and media relations glory – that have proven so important to businesses and their customers will now happen on Web sites such as Amazon, AdAge, eBay, Salesforce.com and MSNBC.com, some of the first to try out the platform.

Still blurry? Twitter puts it this way:

Imagine being able to follow a New York Times journalist directly from her byline, tweet about a video without leaving YouTube, and discover new Twitter accounts while visiting the Yahoo! home page—and that’s just the beginning. Twitter has proven to be compelling in a variety of ways. With @anywhere, web site owners and operators will be able to offer visitors more value with less heavy lifting.

Jeff, a social media strategist here at HM&P, has already put together his thoughts on four ways the @Anywhere application will impact B2B marketing. I’m interested to see what kind of impact @Anywhere will have on sales and lead generation, and if it will increase Twitter’s small core of “consistent users.”

What do you think about the new platform?