Consider these two things all of us identify clearly:

Till now Twitter was all about ranting a swift diatribe or share any view under the sky in 140 characters.

The second thing is American Express, for as long as most of us have been in business, is synonmous with reliable and quick credit and cash transfers.

Here's something new now. When social media goes the e-commerce way and a financial service corp join hands it gives birth to a "one-tweet shopping" experience.

What are talking about?

Twitter and American Express have launched a partnership that will allow Amex card holders to "sync their card" with Twitter after making an online purchase using only #hashtags.

The long and short of the venture is that firstly it is applicable only for Amex cardholders and no other corporate cards. After the users tweet a confirmation tag, Amex will revert back with a mail that needs to be responded in a quick-span 15 minutes by the customers. The user's card will be immediately charged and the items shipped to billing address provided.

To begin with now the product offers, available in American Express Favorites section, are applicable only for Amazon Kindle Fire, a Sony Action cam, a Donna Karan designed bracelet and an Xbox 360.

Lot of marketing anticipations loom behind this latest move. While Amex's VP of Global Product and Business Development, David Wolf says that "Just tweeting a hashtag literally turns that tweet into a transaction". In a similar vein, Twitter's Joel Lunefeld opined that "You can turn a hashtag into more than just a conversation...you can turn it into a trigger that actually can spark commerce".

For both the companies this is not the first collaborative venture. They sealed a deal last year whereby Twitter allowed merchants with the Amex cards to purchase ads. American Express, too, has in the past ventured out to various social media sites as part of its business strategy. According to its Sync Program, that was flagged open in last March, discount offers on Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Xbox Live, could be redeemed.

On the flip side, there might some privacy compromises that users have to endure. "Protected accounts aren't allowed, there's no way to take advantage of a discount without it being public information". To site a positive in this dilemma, businesses are assured of their product and sale strategies without putting in too much effort.

As interesting as it may sound, so far social media sites have been a launch pad for businesses to engage in e-commerce but now social networks are themselves becoming the actors. For Amex the ready advantage is its expansion in the fraternity while Twitter will look to cash in some extra revenue with this endeavor.