Twitter has clearly been a debated development on the web, but its ever-growing popularity is undeniable. However, if you’re like us and you love Twitter, odds are good you probably don’t love logging into your web account over and over again just to see what people are up to. Read on below to see what five of our favorite Twitter clients are from the desktop to your mobile device.
Twinkle (iPhone, iPod Touch) – Twinkle isn’t necessarily a dedicated twitter client, but rather a social networking application that allows users to see what other Twinkle users are nearby using GPS or IP address location technology. It also has the benefit of linking in your twitter account information so when you send out a Twinkle update it will send out a tweet as well for all of your followers on Twitter. Another neat feature of Twinkle is that you can share photos taken with your iPhone with people around you, giving it a tighter, more local community feel. Of course, this could also be construed as kind of creepy I suppose. I actually used Twinkle quite a bit when I first got my iPod Touch, but had some strange problems with my twitter updates not coming through consistently. I’ve spoken with friends who have used it without issue, but eventually after I got my fancy-pants new iPhone 3G I upgraded to…
Twitterfon (iPhone, iPod Touch) – Besides having a simple and intuitive interface, Twitterfon became a fast favorite for me on account of providing great performance. It’s always quick to load even the longest list of updates from those I follow and has Twitter search built in. It’s not technically as flashy or good looking as other mobile twitter incarnations, but its elegance comes from its simplicity.
Tweetdeck (Windows, Mac, Linux) – Built on the Adobe AIR runtime, Tweetdeck offers a multi-column approach for keeping track of your friends on twitter as well as Facebook. While the columns were at first off-putting for me, I quickly grew fond of the organizational capabilities in Tweetdeck which allowed me to group the people I follow into groups to keep an eye on. Tweetdeck also utilizes Growl notifications if you feel so inclined and also features a built-in Twitter search for finding friends and tweets related to your interests.
Chirp (Mac Widget) – If you’re looking for an unintrusive, lightweight aproach to staying abreast of all your friends’ tweeting, you may want to take a look at Chirp. It’s got a very low footprint from a system resource standpoint and just enough options to keep you up-to-date. My only gripe with Chirp is that the window is fairly tiny and it doesn’t appear you can re-size it to keep you from having to scroll constantly if you’ve got a lot of updates to sort through. However, customizing the color scheme is a nice option for those that are design-concious and updates have always been quickly delivered in my experience.
Twitterfox (Firefox Plugin) – If you’re a fan of Firefox, there’s a great plugin called Twitterfox that puts an unobtrusive icon in the bottom-right-hand corner of the browser that pops up like a menu to view tweets, replies, and direct messages. You can instruct Twitterfox to update tweets manually, or configure it to do so on its own through the options. Plus, since (usually) Firefox will check for updates to your plugins automatically, you’ll be notified periodically as new versions become available.
No related posts.
