TMO Quick Tip - Twitter Clients 101

by , 7:30 AM EST, February 1st, 2008

Twitter is a cool tool for keeping everyone up to date on what's going on in your world or your head. One of the things that really sets this social networking Web site apart is the spontaneity it brings to user's mini-blog entries. Creating and following tweets from the Twitter Web site, however, can really kill the mood -- at least for some people.

The Twitter Web interface

If the Twitter Web site just doesn't do it for you, there are other options out there.

Twitterrific Twitterrific from Iconfactory is a stand-alone Twitter client that lets you compose and post your own entries, also known as tweets, reply to other user's tweets, send private messages, mark users as favorites, and more. It keeps everything packed in a tight little package that saves Desktop space, and it supports Growl notifications.

Twitterrific

Twitterrific costs US$14.95, but you can use it for free if you don't mind seeing ads tossed in with the tweets you follow.

thwirl twhirl is another stand-alone Twitter client, but this one is cross-platform because it relies on Adobe AIR: Adobe's run-time application environment. It sports many of the same features as Twitterrific along with the ability to shorten long URLs and alternate interface color schemes, but a memory leak in Adobe AIR could cause some performance issues with twhirl.

twirl

twirl is free, and it requires that you first install the free Adobe AIR 3 beta.

MoodBlast includes a menu bar item...

MoodBlast MoodBlast is pretty cool in that it can post entries to multiple services at the same time including Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr, Skype, iChat, and Adium. If you post to multiple services, this can be a real time saver. MoodBlast is free, but the developers are more than happy to accept donations.

...and an entry window, too.

Of course, there are plenty of other Twitter-compatible clients out there. Feel free to share your favorite as a comment.

If you want to learn more about Twitter, check out the TMO article that explains how to get started, and if you want to follow what's going on at TMO with Twitter be sure to check out TMO on Twitter.

Jeff Gamet is TMO's Morning Editor and Reviews Editor. He lectures, teaches and speaks on Mac OS X and design-related topics, and is the author of The Designer's Guide to Mac OS X from Peachpit Press.

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