To say that you really 'get' Twitter they say you need to do three things; 1) you need to get an @reply from someone you admire 2) you need to post a question and get loads of answers 3) you need to follow someone famous that you're a fan of. I'm adding a number 4 -you need to access twitter from an external application.Â
You won't be alone, according to Twitter 70% of all tweets come from text messages or applications built on the Twitter API and good lordy there are a lot of applications out there. These apps go beyond just publishing tweets; many applications leverage the main database of Twitter for information about breaking news, stocks, emerging trends and even bacon recipes.Â
According to Wikipedia there are over 100 Twitter clones out there and it seems that the Twitter team made a conscious decision to make it ludicrously easy to build a Twitter app. This has been a crucial part of Twitter wining the micro blogging wars (It was nice while it lasted Pownce and Jaiku).
Here are my 5 favorite Twitter apps:
Tweetdeck
17% of all tweets come from TweetDeck -way ahead of the rest so it's pretty much the dominant Twitter desktop app. At the heart of TweetDeck is its ability to create groups of people together grouping friends or work colleagues separately means you have a window on all aspects of your twitter life. These additional columns automatically update, providing the user with a very effective dashboard of real-time information. Seesmic Desktop will offer similar functionality.
StockTwits
StockTwits.com is a Twitter powered financial bulletin board. The site skims Twitter for messages people tag with stock symbols - $GOOG for Google, for instance - and aggregates them on a Tumblr site with stock charts, tags, and comments. Great for real-time analysis.
Twitterfon
The problem with most of the Twitter iPhone apps is that they fail to capture the spirit of Twitter. Twitter is a service that allows you to send 140 character messages to other people and that simplicity is what the apps should capture, most of them have far too many bells and whistles. Twitterfon is simple and free. The others have a ong way to compete.
Twistori
Twistori, according to the site, is the "first step in an ongoing social experiment." The brainchild of Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs, Twistori pulls tweets from Twitter (via twitter search) containing specific keywords: i love, i hate, i think, i believe, i feel, and i wish. It then publishes the tweets it finds anonymously in a non-stop, auto-updating river of news. The effect is hypnotic. Put on some indie music and relax for a few minutes, totally worth it.
Twitpic
TwitPic is by far the easiest, best way to share pics on twitter
What is your favorite Twitter app?Â
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