As is fairly apparent by now on this site, Twitter has become a regular part of my daily life for both personal and business use. I find a lot of value in the resources to be found via tweeted tips and more. While other social networking sites out there absolutely have a lot to offer, for me Twitter fits the bill as to what I need to stay connected in real time. That said, here are a few Twitter tool goodies I’ve found this week that you may or may not yet know of. Happy Tweeting!

Twitter Clients

Blu

Meet blu. Now you can experience Twitter in a whole new way.

Destroy Twitter

DestroyTwitter is a compact though robust Twitter application built to run on Mac, Windows, and Linux using Adobe AIR.

Mad Twitter

MadTwitter is a Windows application that lets you read “twits” written by your friends and publish your own. It’s inspired in Twitterrific, a really nice application for Mac.

Mixero

Mixero. The new generation Twitter client for people who value their time and are tired of information noise.

Social Whale

Social Whale. Currently in beta. Must follow them to get an invite.

Tweet Sort

Tweetsort takes all your favorite features from the vast range of applications and merges them into one simple, sleek, easy to use web application.

Analysis & Stats

Twanalyst

Twanalyst - Get your free Twitter personality test! ... and some sensible tips, too.

Tweet Stats

TweetStats - Graph your Twitter Stats including: Tweets per hour, per month, tweet timeline, reply statistics.

Twinfluence

Twinfluence is a simple tool for measuring the combined influence of twitterers and their followers, with a few social network statistics thrown in as bonus.

Twitter Grader

Twitter Grader provides grading stats and information for your Twitter account There is also a blog grading feature. I've used both and find the tools to be fun and useful.

Twitterholic

Twitterholic. Our twittastic robots scan the Twitter public timeline for new twits to tweet. A few times a day, we calculate individual statistics for each twittering twit in our database.

Directories & Search

TweepSearch

TweepSearch was created to allow people on Twitter to search their followers bio and location information.

Twellow

Twellow is a directory of public Twitter accounts, with hundreds of categories and search features to help you find people who matter to you.

TwitDir

TwitDir is a Twitter users (some call them twitterers) directory. Also includes Top 100 lists. Useful search tool!

We Follow

We Follow is one of the more popular Twitter directory sites, used by many celebs and power users.

Twitter Search

Twitter.com's own built in search. This is my own search tool of preference, as it just does that and like Twitter, offers simplicity when all I want to do is search for something!

Friends & Followers

Does Follow

DoesFollow.com - Find out who follows who follows who with this simple search tool.

Friend or Follow

Friend or Follow - Who are you following that's not following you back? Who's following you that you're not following back? Find out!

Mutuality

Mutuality is a simple service which allow you to make bulk operations with your account.

Qwitter

Qwitter e-mails you when someone stops following you on Twitter

Tweepler

Tweepler Is an easy, more enjoyable way of processing your New Twitter Followers.

Twitoria

Twitoria finds your friends that haven't tweeted in a long time so you can give them the boot!

Twitter Karma

Twitter Karma is my tool of choice for managing my friends and followers. It provides a great view of who you're following and if they are following you back, and lets you bulk follow or unfollow though be careful doing any "mass" follow, unfollow. Great tool, just don't abuse it or Twitter may bite you!

Twitterless

Twitterless tells you who stops following you and graphs your follower history over time, making this info available in a variety of useful views. I use this service regularly so I can keep track of who has stopped following, etc.

Twollo

Twollo. Find and Follow Twitterers with similar interests to you - automatically, for FREE! I just started using this service and will review it in more detail when I see more results.

Twubble

Twubble can help expand your Twitter bubble—it searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow. I've yet to try this yet but it's on my Twitter to-do list. I gotta say, I do love the name!

Hash Tags

#Hashtags

Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets.

What the Hashtag?!

You can add quick definitions from our home page or via Twitter, but signing up on WTH?! allows you to add even more content, like expanded descriptions, related hashtags and links. 2.

Job Searches

TwitHire

TwitHire is a free job listing service for Twitter. Our goal is to help employers promote job opportunities and reach out to candidates by simply tweeting.

Twitter Job Search

Find your perfect job before someone else does Many jobs appear on Twitter before they're posted on the major job search engines. Twitter Job Finder helps you find them fast.

Media

Tweetr

Send files to your friends, but just dragging any file on to Tweetr. Tweetr will automatically upload your file and when it is done will provide a short url to send to your friends

TwitPic

TwitPic lets you share photos on Twitter. One of the popular services seen in use on Twitter.

TwitPrint

TwitPrint.com is a Twitter printer! Use it to print your tweets. You can make it include pictures too.

TwitSay

Record your voice and put it on Twitter! Go to your Twitter page and listen to your voice message. All your followers can listen to it, too!

Twitxr

Share pictures and status updates from your mobile. Automatically add your location to your pictures and status updates

TwtFM

Another highly popular Twitter app. twt.fm lets you share music on Twitter. Catch is it's just 30 seconds of each but still cool!

Bubble Tweet

Say hello to your followers with a video Bubble Tweet! Amusing and clever tool.

Account Management & More

FlashTweet

FlashTweet is a mass follow tool that simplifies the process of adding your twitter friends. You can add multiple Twitter accounts to your profile, discover who you are following that is following you back, mass follow users based on search terms, unfollow multiple friends at once, schedule tweets in advance & much more.

HootSuite

HootSuite is the ultimate Twitter toolbox. With HootSuite, you can manage multiple Twitter profiles, add multiple editors, pre-schedule tweets, and measure your success.

Tweet Later

I use Tweet Later for my other accounts and love it. They are always improving the functionality and keeping it fresh with the Twitter API. Highly recommended!

Twitscoop

Receive, send tweets, and find new friends instantly, without ever reloading your page.

Twitterface

Twitterface is a web-based, personally-branded, multi-account Twitter interface.

Tweetbeep

Free Twitter Alerts by Email! Keep track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company, anything, with hourly updates!

Tweetake

, Tweetake is here to allow you to back-up your followers, people you are following and Tweets with just one click.

Tweepular

Feature rich account and follower management. And colorful too!

Topify

Save time with Topify. Powerful Twitter email notifications.

Splitweet

Easy management for multiple Twitter accounts and brand monitor

Notes

Remember the Milk

Take your tasks anywhere with this feature-packed application. See tasks located nearby, add and complete tasks on the go, organize upcoming tasks, and sync it all seamlessly with Remember The Milk.

Tweet Stuff

Check Retweet

Find any twitterer's retweets!

Filttr

There are times when you would like to cut out the chirping and just focus on what is important. Filttr makes it easy for you to do just that.

GroupTweet

GroupTweet is constantly listening for direct messages sent to your group's Twitter account. When a direct message is received, GroupTweet instantly publishes it as a tweet from the group account.

Tweetburner

Tracking the links you share on Twitter.

Twitter Digest

Twitter Digest lets you read Twitter updates in a more manageable fashion. Just pick the usernames you'd like to generate a digest for, and you will see all updates made by them during the past full day.

Twit This

TwitThis lets you easily share links with your friends, and find new followers.

Profiles

Clickable Now

Install the FREE browser add-on so you can see other users' clickable profiles. It only takes one click and it's quick and safe.

Peekr

A tool to easily view what's hiding behind the Twitter content box. See the full Twitter background!

TwitSig

Many forums, Blogs, and other web services allow you to have images as part of your signature. twitsig.com allows you to display your current twitter status as an image.

App Related

iTwitter

Introducing The iTwitter Tab (free) for your iGoogle page.

Twitter Toolbar

This handy and easy to use short cut/quicklinks toolbar brings Twitter so close that it is only one click away. You'll have access to a large variety of highly requested tools & resources.

Twessenger

Twessenger is a Twitter add-in for Windows Live Messenger.

Twitbin

Twitbin is a firefox extension that allows you to keep up with all of your Twitter conversations right from your browser sidebar. Send messages, receive messages, share links, and more from Twitbin, the best twitter addon for firefox out there.

TwitterFox

TwitterFox is a Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends' tweets on Twitter. This was my first ever Twitter tool used. Great option for light users with not too many followers.

Fun & Creative

Favrd

What can I say? If you're bored, visit Favrd, random "favorited tweets" that are often hysterical!

Secrettweet

Have a secret you're just dying to tell? Need to confess? Make it a Secret Tweet.

TweetPsych

TweetPsych uses two linguistic analysis algorithms (RID and LIWC) to build a psychological profile of a person based on the content of their tweets. Interesting tool!

Twitwall

When its too long to tweet, just TwitWall it! TwitWall is the easy-to-use, quick-to-blast-out, instant blog companion for Twitter.

Marketing

Sponsored Tweets

Sponsored Tweets is a new Twitter advertising platform that connects advertisers with tweeters. Advertisers can create sponsored conversations on Twitter. Tweeters can earn money for spreading the word.

Twittertise

Twittertise allows you to advertise on Twitter and track the success of branded communications with your customers.

Twitterhawk

witterHawk is a real time targeted marketing engine that will find people talking on twitter now by your chosen topic and location, allowing you to really hit your target mid conversation with ease.

Twittad

Monetize your Twitter background. Very unique concept. Twittad is a Social Media Affinity Network that connects Advertisers and Twitter users. By using Twittad, Twitter users can monetize their profiles & Advertisers can reach ALL of Twitter; the Website, 3rd Party Applications and Mobile Devices!

Misc Goodies

Aviary

Capture any webpage: Just add Aviary.com/ in front of the URL!

MyPictr

Need a photo for your social network? It's never been easier.

Skitch

I recently found Skitch and am always amused at what others upload and share. Nice tool! (Currently for Mac only, dangit!)

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER

As the popularity of the microblogging site turned household word continues to grow, so does it’s mention in the news media. Performing a basic search in Google results in an explosion of news stories, articles and blog posts about the social networking phenomenon. Most are generic in nature and relate to the service’s massive growth, such as the buzz surrounding the possibility of various internet giants being poised or in talks to buy Twitter, along with many op-ed articles either giving the birdie a whole hearted thumbs up or just giving the bird in general and wishing the Twitterverse would go find a new galaxy somewhere. Twitter, love it or hate it, but either way it’s definitely aflutter within recent media reporting.

Just like with every hugely popular trend, it’s success comes with the good, the bad, and the strange! I wish to share with my readers a few of the more bizarre and outright weird news stories I’ve come across. The moral of all the oddball stories below? Twitter doesn’t just mimic real life. In it’s own unique micro way it provides a true glimpse into the human experience. A “tweet” can be so spontaneous it appears to often capture a very accurate depiction of what each user is truly like. It’s my belief that sometimes a simple 140 characters or less can tell more about a person’s character than a full blog, bio, interview and so on. Why? Because it’s so raw and often “off the top of our heads”. However, with the rawness comes the downright strange, just .. like … REAL life. Perhaps we really are what we tweet.

Metro Pastor Says Twitter Post Led to Hate Crime

One of Pastor Taylor’s Twitter posts: “Crowley invokes the power of the badge on private property proved to be owned by black professor i guess black men cant holler on they land”

Read Full Story

Watch what you Tweet – Twitter could get you sued

Watch what you Tweet – Twitter could get you sued. One Chicago renter is find this out the hard way. Reportedly on May 12th Amanda Bonnen mentioned her “moldy apartment” to her 20 followers and now her property manager is taking her to court.

Read Full Story

Woman Chronicles Bank Heist on Twitter

“My bank was just held up — with me in it. HSBC 34 and 8,” the 26-year-old Web producer tweeted her 1,900 or so followers just after 9 a.m. under her Twitter name, TravelingAnna, referring to 34th Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan. “Also my whole trackball is GONE!!! I’m locked in the bank still.”

Read Full Story

Lindsay Lohan Claims Her Twitter Account Was Hacked

Note: While I certainly don’t know Lindsay personally, I tend to like what I do know of her as a person. She’s battled her own demons very publicly and suffered her own family dramas with the whole world watching and snapping photos. Despite all this, she is one of those celebs who readily communicates with fans, as well as her own friends and loved ones via Twitter, @sevinnyne6126. I obviously have no idea if this news story is true, but even if it is, there’s not a person alive who’s not been guilty of speaking our minds when we perhaps should have thought better of it. The only difference here is Celebrity+Twitter= News.

Read Full Story

Los Angeles earthquake chokes phone calls, not Twitter

I am totally serious. My Ob/Gyn was IN my vagina and an earthquake started rattling the room! @MissRFTC.

Read Full Story

Man jogs into tree while using Twitter

While this story may be humorous to read and immediately conjures up a funny visual, it also brings to mind the message that it’s not safe to perform tasks like this such as texting, talking on a cellphone or tweeting while our attention needs to be focused on what we’re doing. Tweet safely!

Read Full Story

Pirate Bay Founders Get Served Through Twitter

There are no public mentions of the summoning in any of the public profiles of the Pirate Bay Founders so we assume that they did so via direct messages. Meanwhile, BREIN’s official site seems to be suffering from a DDoS attack, but this is of course totally unrelated to the announcement of the anti-piracy outfit. – Source

Read Full Story.

Twitter cat has 500,000 fans

A cat named Socks is fast becoming the next big thing on Twitter. @sockington

Read Full Story

British royal family turns to Twitter

News about the British royal family is now available through the social networking service Twitter, Buckingham Palace announced.

Read Full Story

Perez Hilton Asks Twitter Followers to Call Police on Will.i.am

Note: I have to say that I’m on Team Perez here. Whether I always agree with the smarty pants blogger or not, he has the legal right to not get punched in the head. Speaking our minds is not against the law, violence is. After viewing the video “testimonies” from both parties, I believe that no matter what Perez said, violence was not the answer. I do think Perez should be able to better “take it” if he can dish it out as he does on his world famous blog. However, the answer here for will.i.am and his people would’ve simply been to walk away. (Read John Mayer’s war of words with Perez on Twitter over the incident).

Read Full Story

Tweet lands Twitter user in jail

A computer geek in Guatemala has become one of the first in the world to be arrested for Twittering.  Jean Anleu was so tired with corruption in his country that he decided to vent his feeling with a 96-character message on the social-networking site.  The message, or tweet, has now earned him a potential five-year prison sentence.

Read Full Story

Trent Reznor Ends Twitter Legacy By Deleting Account

Rock Daily was saddened to learn this weekend that Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor deleted his Twitter account, officially ending his tenure on the 140-character social network.

Read Full Story

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER!

As you may have already noticed by the recent posts on this site, yours truly has been ever so slightly bitten by the Twitter bug. While I don’t consider myself a social networking junkie in any sense of the word, I definitely now recognize the value of this awesome micro blogging mode of communication. So simple, yet very powerful as a marketing tool. Whether you’re tweeting to promote a new piece of software, pimp your themes and designs, writing a book, you name it, Twitter can end up your absolute online BFF.

In keeping with the spirit of the big T, I’ve started offering a few of my own Twitter services, in the form of graphical goodness. If you’re looking to spruce up your Twitter page and low on Photoshop skill and cash, please feel free to check out my absolutely FREE Twitter Backgrounds. There are 100 in total I’ve created but I’m only putting up 20 at a time so be sure and check back weekly. If you’re wanting a more unique solution, in a few weeks I’ll be offering exclusive custom Twitter designs. There’s a brand new site coming for this service so again, stay tuned!

Happy Tweeting & Don’t Forget To Follow Me On Twitter!

Not everybody who tweets also runs a website, but if you are a site owner, there’s a decent chance you’re powered by Wordpress. There are other frameworks and CMSs of course, such as Joomla, Drupal, Typepad, etc but for those of you who are using Wordpress and Twitter, there are many ways in which you can integrate your tweets and more right into your site! Joomla is a wonderfully powerful feature filled CMS, and I run a few sites with it, but for the ease of use and simple functionality, I encourage you to take another look at Wordpress for your site needs. Now onto the Twitter/Wordpress love!

• How To Add Twitter Favorites To Your Site
• How to Run Multiple Twitter Feeds on the Same Page
• Add Twitter Counter to Your Page
• Twitter Followers Counter Tutorial
• Add a Tweetroll Badge to Your Site
• Add Twitter to Your Blog – Step by Step

Wordpress Plugins for Twitter

• Tweet Suite
• Tweetbacks
• Twittar – Twitter Avatars
• Twitter Tools
• Twitter Friendly Links
• Tweet Tweet
• Twitter Digest
• Word Twit
• Tweet This
• WP My Twitter
• Twitturls
• Twitter Updater
• TwitterPress
• Bird Feeder
• Twitter Doodle
• Twitter Auto Linker
• Twitgets
• Twitter for Wordpress
• Twitter Widget
• 52 Plugins for Twitter

Twitter & Wordpress Integration Guide – Free Download
13 Essential Tools for Twitter Integration
10 Twitter Hacks for Your Wordpress Blog

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER!

If you’ve been on Twitter for any length of time, you’ve probably by now noticed there’s many celebs also enjoying the art of Tweeting. Some use Twitter to promote their current projects, and others use it to simply be social. This is a new trend for sure. A few years ago, mixing, mingling and exchanging 140 characters or less with a well known person online was fairly unheard of. While it’s nice to be able to log on and see what John Cusack is up to, or catch up on the happenings of the day with Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, what isn’t fun is a 12 year old kid thinking she just had the tweeting experience of her life with the Jonas Brothers, (who do NOT have separate accounts), or following about 20 different Twitter accounts ALL claiming to be a particular famous person. Some are downright obviously posers, but others have been, sadly, very effective and believable. Justin Timberlake had I don’t know how many posers in all, but being a fairly social networking type himself (see Robo.to, his SN site), he finally got on Twitter with a “Verified Account“. Twitter recently began offering a verification process, not for all stars but only for those being impersonated on the micro blogging site. This is a good thing.

I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be impersonated but I laughed out loud at a particular tweet of Alyssa Milano who commented on having found somebody posing as her on Twitter (despite her already being an established Twitter user).

A fake me is following me. I wonder how I’m doing this evening. ~ @Alyssa_Milano

Sometimes a verified account doesn’t always stop these apparently very bored people who have way too much time on their hands. Oh definitely not. Miley Cyrus has a verified account, but at any one given time there are at least a dozen if not more “Mileys” trying to suck in the teen masses into believing it’s her “second account”. Even her dad Billy Ray was not immune and had a handful of posers portraying him. Then the confusion really sets in when all these fake people follow other fake people, likely all ONE person unless there’s some “poser posse” out there somewhere. This truly gives new meaning to the term multiple personality disorder. The entire Cyrus family at one point was all being faked. Billy Ray, once told of his poser, got so outraged for the sake of his fans being deceived that he jumped out of bed, snapped a photo, sent to Twitter and immediately had his account verified in order to stop “RealBillyRay”.

See! This is me ! I just snapped this picture. Please block the real billy ray cyrus. It is a fake ! - @BillyRayCyrus

Yes. There is a poser ! Elvis said” Imitation is the highest form of flatery”. But that was before Twitter. This scumbag is a fake!!!!!!!! ~ @BillyRayCyrus

Even though some celebs have made it crystal clear that they don’t use Twitter, it doesn’t seem to stop the posers. For instance, Vanessa Hudgens, impersonated heavily on Twitter, confirmed, along with Zac Efron, that they do NOT use Twitter during an interview on the red carpet of an award show, and on Ellen. A few posers tried to explain it away that they didn’t want too many people knowing about this “private account” (with the celeb’s name and pic splashed all over the page), and a few others simply said she “changed her mind” and DOES tweet now.

Sometimes the internet can be a wonderful globally “together” place and other times the fact that anyone can hide behind their computer screens beneath the veil of anonymity, really breeds a sense of distrust and asks the wonderful age old question … “WTF???”

So bottom line, while Twitter is clearly addressing the issue and at some point fake tweeps will be a thing of the past, in the meantime, if the account is NOT verified, while this does not at all mean they aren’t the real deal, use caution. Don’t go around bragging to all your coworkers that you just had the most amazing tweet session with Robert Pattinson of Twilight (who, as of this writing, does NOT use Twitter).

If you think you’ve found a poser and want to do something about it, I recommend contacting TweetFakes, and Valebrity, who make it their business to verify and report on who’s real and who isn’t. Be careful yet AGAIN though, as there are some posers out there so hell bent on gaining your belief and trust, they will even create a similar Twitter account that by all appearances looks like it’s there to BEAT the fakes for the sole purpose of  “verifying” themselves. Yeah, try wrapping your brain around that one!

Tips

• If you’ve found an alleged celeb on Twitter but aren’t sure, Google is your friend. Often times googling the username and adding “Twitter” will reveal details about that account. If it’s a legit account, it may be verified as such by being linked to from the star’s official website. Be careful though, as sometimes these posers will go to the extent of creating “official” MySpace and other accounts so they can appear real.
• Just because the Twitter username in question is the exact celeb’s name, doesn’t always mean it’s valid. Example, @VanessaHudgens was previously faked.
• While this isn’t an infallible observation, if you run across a supposed celeb on Twitter and they are doing nothing but tweeting about NOT being fake, more times than not, they ARE fake. Often these imposters will threaten fans and followers, in typical Sarah Bernhardt fashion, that they will stop tweeting, cancel the account and leave Twitter forever if they continue to be called fakes. Honestly, it’s not hard to prove who they are, IF they are that person.
• When you see two or more versions of the same “celeb” in tweet fights, each accusing the other of being fake and how “outraged” they are that anyone would stoop so low, more than likely … fake. That’s not to say actual celebs aren’t highly angry and probably also fairly creeped out at being impersonated, but most have far more to do with their time than defend themselves being real, and are likely too busy to spend 80 tweets in a war of words with another poser.
• As entertaining as watching posers defend their “honor”, or observe 2 or more battle it out, resist joining in. While I don’t understand HOW this feels good for them and in my view it would seem like it would make a loser feel even more LIKE a loser, apparently that’s not the case or there wouldn’t be so many. SO, if it’s attention they crave, the best revenge you can take is giving them none.
• Photoshop can be used for evil, though luckily for us, not very many villains on Twitter are yet good enough at it. However, be aware of fake celebs “proving” their authenticity via posting a photo of them holding up a sign with their username allegedly “written” on it. Some celebs have done this but more often than not, the end result belongs on a Photoshop Disasters Hall of Shame. If it looks “off”, it likely IS.
• If a “celeb” is on Twitter spamming the hell out of you … yeah, they don’t normally need the extra affiliate bucks!

Other Articles

• How to Spot a Fake on Twitter
• Trick or Tweet?
• 15 Fake & Funny Twitter Accounts (Parody Tweeting)
• Top 10 Twitter Celebs – Real or Fake?
• Top 5 Worst Twitter Fake Celebs
• How to Apply for Twitter Verification
• Twitter Power Players Get Shiny “Verified” Badges

While I wouldn’t begin to keep track of all tweeting celebs, I do have my favorites (who are the real deals) … feel free to check those out and why you too should be following them!

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER!

(yes it really is me! Ha)

Birdies, I see birdies, they’re everywhere! No, thankfully we’re not talking about an Alfred Hitchcock flick and the feathered flock is friend not foe, but they ARE swarming, all over the net. Who’d have guessed back before the internet went all Web 2.0 on us that one of the main mascots of the new technology era and social networking craze would be a bird for the now insanely popular Twitter micro blogging service. As a graphics designer, I gotta admit, some of the illustrations out there are ridiculously adorable. And while I am a designer, I’m not much of an illustrator, so I often find myself in awe of what new creations I see come along.

If you’re just dying to get your hands on a few of these freebie birdies for your own Twitter endeavors, I’ve compiled a list for you! Thanks to the artists for sharing their talents and offering their Twitter goodies for free!

An interesting sidenote, the actual bird used on the Twitter site was licensed from iStockPhoto.com for around $6!

The bird on Twitter’s home page, familiar to millions, is small, cute and fun, and implies communication and anticipation. One might say it’s the perfect graphic for Twitter. Yet the company paid its designer at most $6, without attribution.

• Read the Article on Wired.com

• Interview with Twitter bird artist Simon Oxley

FREE Twitter Birdies, Badges & More!

• Twitterbies – Twitter Bird Freebies
• Design Mirkku’s Birdies (I love these adorable little guys!)
• Happy Birds from WebDesign.fm
• Twitter Birds from TheDesignSuperHero.com
• 8 Free Cute & Simple Twitter Birds from Spoon Graphics
• 181 Free Twitter Buttons, Badges, Widget and Counters to Help You Find Followers
• 100+ Remarkably Beautiful Twitter Icons And Buttons

Twitter Bird Illustration Tutorials

• Create a Twitter Style Bird Mascot – Vector Tuts
  

• Drawing Twitter Bird Love Vector Using Photoshop and Illustrator

• Create A Vector Art Twitter Bird Character Icon In Adobe Illustrator

• Birds of a Feather Dingbat Font

Creativity is for the Birds!

• 20 + Twitter Bird Designs
• 10 Twitter Inspired Creations
• 16 Ways of Making Twitter Birds COOL!

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER!

If you haven’t jumped on the Twitter train yet, then this post will probably not interest you. Then again since quite a few of my recent posts are Twitterish in nature, you may just wanna hit the x now ha! It took some time indeed, but I’m able to say with certainty at this point that I’ve finally been bit by the Twitter bug. I’ve been a member for a year now but only recently finally really started seeing the value of what this nifty little social networking service has to offer. So what better than Twitter? How about some helpful resources and tools that make Twitter itself better? Sound good? Read on!

In this post, I’m going to address the topic of Twitter clients, which are applications that provide an alternative to tweeting directly from the Twitter.com website. There are a gazillion to choose from but after trying out about a dozen, there were two that won in my book, hands down.

Tweet Deck

Gotta have it, can’t live without it. I’ll even go as far as to say that I didn’t get nearly as involved in my tweeting until I installed this beautiful little Adobe Air desktop application. It stacks tweets into columns, completely customizable with as many columns as you can imagine needing. It looks rather like a deck of cards, hmmm Tweet”deck”! Oh and it’s 100% FREE.

It also features a powerful search function, a terrific way to filter out results for quickly narrowing down tweets, and my favorite feature, Groups. When one has hundreds of followers, it’s near impossible to keep track of who’s tweeting what. I use this feature to create Groups and open them in columns. Wanna know what’s being said about something in particular on Twitter? Create a column for that keyword and voila! In addition to all this, NO manual refreshing, all tweets come in automatically in real time.

TweetDeck is your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook and more. TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organised and up to date.

My Tweetdeck

Video Tutorial on how to use Tweetdeck

Tweetvisor

This is a web app and though Tweetdeck does most things I need, there’s a few features Tweetvisor has that I am finding myself relying on. The one main killer feature here is threaded replies/conversations, as far back as you can go. It also offers a one click trip to visit the very first tweets on any profile. Like Tweetdeck, it also features grouping and favorites. There is no real time function but there is an auto refresh. There’s a few glitches that sometimes I have to refresh more than once, but all in all, very promising app!

TechCrunch said:

“Tweetvisor is the best browser based solution we’ve seen.”

My Tweetvisor

There are many mobile people out there who tweet from their iPhones, etc but for those of us glued to our computers and vice versa, the above choices are my picks.

For more comprehensive information about Twitter apps, see the following resources:

• 275+ Twitter Applications
• The Top 21 Twitter Clients (according to Twistat)
• The Top 21 Twitter Applications (according to Complete)
• Twitter Client Applications – The Twitter Fairy
• The Twitpocalypse is Almost Here: Will Your Twitter Client Survive?