Sunday, September 28, 2008

Twitter Applications and Enhancements







Just a quick blog on some Twitter applications I was talking about before to check out (Read last blog post for more info on Twitter).

Twitter has some great applications that increase the ease with which one can tweet. I am not going to pretend that I have used all of these or even come close (just because of the sheer number of potential Twittering techniques), but I can list a bunch of these for you, and you can try out a few to see if they make life easier for you!

Aside from internet applications, Twitter can be integrated into your cell phone/smart phone/iPhone/pick-your-type-of-mobile-phone service. A few simple set-up steps and tweet away via text messaging. Otherwise, integration with iPhone apps and smart phones is also possible through phone internet services and apps.  Obviously, gathering a large friend base and network is much easier to do via traditional website usage; so I would reserve networking for Twitter time away from the phone.

Overall, check out the following: 
  • TwitterBerry - a mobile client for posting updates via the BlackBerry without using SMS. 
  • Twitterific - a very popular application with a sleek interface and minimal real estate. It was created for the Mac, and has extremely high reviews. Free basic version, however there is an upgraded version for $14.95 sans advertisements and with enhancements.
  • TweetDeck - TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application that is currently in public beta. It aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.
  • Slandr - Slandr delivers an enhanced mobile site for Twitter, easier mobile use.
  • Brightkite - Brightkite is a location-based social network. In real time you can see where your friends are and what they're up to. Depending on your privacy settings you can also meet others nearby. Twitter can be integrated into this service as well for overall status - where are you and what are you doing?
  • Hahlo - another mobile enhanced Twitter app.
  • Twirl - twhirl is a social software desktop client, based on the Adobe AIR platform.  Some of twhirl’s features: runs on both Windows (2000/XP/Vista) and Mac OSX, connects to multiple Twitter, laconi.ca, Friendfeed and seesmic accounts, notifications on new messages, shorten long URLs (using snurl, twurl or is.gd), cross-post twitter updates to Pownce and Jaiku, post images to TwitPic, search tweets using Twitter Search and TweetScan, timeline filtering, color schemes, automatically check for new versions, and more (description via their website).
  • TinyTwitter - mobile app that prevents getting dinged for updates and double dinged for friend updates continually arriving via SMS. It will work on ANY Java enabled device and ANY Windows Mobile Pocket PC or Smartphone.
  • Ping.fm - Ping.fm is a simple service that makes updating your social networks a snap. Use AIM, GTalk, iGoogle, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, WAP, iPhone/iPod Touch, SMS or E-mail and let Ping.fm relay your message to a multitude of social networking sites. Seemingly total social integration here.
  • TwitterFeed - Blog/Twitter easy integration; feeds your blog to Twitter.

There are, of course, other applications out there. But these are the main ones I encounter the most. Personal testing is required to find out what works best for you. some of these integrate and enhance more than just Twitter, which is a bonus. but again, it really depends on what is easiest and best suited to each users needs.

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