Sunday, November 29, 2009

Return Of The Clients

If you been using twitter (and after reading my previous posts, I sincerely hope you are!), then you are definitely familiar with the twitter website and it's features or lack thereof!
Don't get me wrong, the web-site is very simple and clutter-free (unlike facebook and orkut), but reading tweets from multiple peeps becomes somewhat of a challenge. Also, you have to constantly refresh your page to check on different portions of your twitter page (read favorites, followers, mentions, etc.)

What if you could organize the people you follow, keep all your favorite tweets at easy reach and have a holistic view of your twitter experience?

Enter the twitter clients!


Table Top Wonders!
You've got Outlook (or ThunderBird if you're into open source!) to manage you mail offline. So why should your tweets be treated differently. Desktop clients are the key to tracking your tweeps and their tweets in an organized and fun manner. Here are some of the best desktop twitter clients -

TweetDeck

Managing your tweets couldn't get simpler than this! Built on the Adobe Air, TweetDeck offers integration with your twitter, facebook and myspace accounts.
TweetDeck is the complete package, upload media, shorten your URLs, maintain your hashtag history and even translate your tweet!
A prominent feature of TweetDeck (one which makes it my preferred desktop client) is the column. Create separate columns for different functions, i.e. one to track all your DMs, one for all your mentions, one for your list of followers and so on. This is great if you're interested in organizing all your tweets and focusing on specific aspects of your twitter timeline.
If you are serious about tweeting, TweetDeck is definitely the way to go!



Seesmic

Next to Tweetdeck, Seesmic is perhaps the most sought after twitter desktop client. And for good reason. The client has a web, desktop and mobile avatar and also supports integration with your facebook profile.
Although I've downloaded the seesmic desktop client, I don't really use it much, but those who have,swear by it. So do check it out before you zero in on a client.
Pssst...if you are really interested in a more detailed comparison between TweetDeck and Seesmic, check out this link


HootSuite


Although a web based client, HootSuite offers most, if not all the functions available in TweetDeck and Seesmic. Labeled as the twitter client for professionals, HootSuite is essentially targeted at those organizations who wish to leverage twitter for their social media presence.
But that doesn't mean that you need to be the CEO of a company to appreciate the features provided by this baby!
A few things that I liked, were the customized shrunk links that allow you to track the number of hits on the target web-page, provision for scheduled tweets and profile statistics summary.


Fun On The Run!
Tweeting is all about keeping your updates mobile. Let's face it, not all of us spend hours together in front of the PC, well not voluntarily at least. So if you need to keep feeding the twitter bird on an hourly basis with your tweets, how do you do that? Well thankfully there are a plethora of clients designed for every mobile phone platform (read OS). Some of the most popular ones are -


Gravity

Designed for Symbian smart phones (read Nokia N&E Series and the likes), this is by far the best in its class. Apart from supporting all the standard twitter functions (retweet, reply, favorite, Direct Message, etc), Gravity also features other cool features. These include forwarding a tweet as an SMS (super awesome!), uploading pictures to multiple media sharing sites (Mobypicture, posterous, twitpic, twitgoo, yfrog, img.ly), creating groups of your followers and even schedule your tweets.
Gravity also integrates with Google Reader. So if you have a RSS feeds synced with your Google Reader, then you can read them right off your phone!
Recently even a facebook integration has been introduced. Although it's still a little buggy, but nonetheless a great addition to an amazing mobile client.
Be warned, this application is not freeware and comes with a price tag of $9.95 (plus taxes). But it's worth every cent!


Tweets60

Tweets60 was the first free native twitter application for Nokia S60. Tweets60 lets you change your status, read the tweets of people you follow, re-tweet, and manage who you follow.
With a fairly simple interface and basic functions of twitter, this is the a great mobile client for those who don't want too many fancy features.


Tweetie

Tweetie is the twitter client for the oh so sought after iPhone and iTouch. Well to be fair, it is originally the twitter client for the Mac, and has a mobile version for Apple's touch products.
Needless to say that the features of this bad boy are at par with the other touch applications. And in true Apple style, Tweetie has seamless integration not only with your web profiles but also your phone address book.
Apart from that the client is fully loaded with features like one-touch media upload, group management, landscape support and much more.
If you own an iPhone (or the iTouch), this is the client you need on your device.


And with that, the Twitter Critter series comes to an end. Through this series I have tried to cover as much area as possible to make your twitter experience as simple and hassle-free as possible.

I hope that these posts have been helpful in demystifying the twitter universe, oops I mean Twitterverse.
Do let me know if there are any other aspects of Twitter that you'd like more gyann on. Till then...


Happy Tweeting!


Previously in the series:
The Twitter Critter Strikes Back!
Attack Of The Apps

2 comments:

  1. interesting post. I don't know how many would pay for Gravity. I'm

    sure most would just get it from here and there :P

    I don't use any of these twitter clients. Somehow adobe apps take

    too much time to load.

    One thing I'd like to add is websites like slandr.net, mwd.net, and

    dabr.co.uk they work excellently on cell phones and work on

    browser too :)

    Rock on!

    N

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, I think I was the only fool who paid for the application, but hey like I said, worth it.

    A big thank you for mentioning the cell-phone compatible web-sites. Will try them myself.

    ReplyDelete