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Useful Twitter Tools

As you get more experienced with Twitter, you’ll see more and more ways to put it to use. However, the Twitter site itself offers only a limited set of features.

Here are a few third-party tools that can be very useful to any Twitter user, including citizen journalists. They’re all free and are either Web-based or run on either Mac or Windows:

• Twhirl. A program you can run on your computer, separate from your Web browser, that offers a slicker and more usable and flexible interface to Twitter than going directly through the Twitter site. You’ll first need to install Adobe’s free AIR platform on your computer in order to run Twhirl. Most regular Twitter users prefer to use some kind of interface program.

  Twhirl is a popular program that provides much more flexible and functional access to Twitter than the Twitter Web site offers

 

• Summize. This is the best tool for searching Twitter posts by keyword (something you can’t do on the Twitter site). Allows you to save your searches, so you can get an ongoing flow of new results to your query. Good for tracking ongoing topics.
   

 

• TwitterLocal Lets you find Twitter users located in or within a certain radius of a geographic location. This should be your first stop if you want to get plugged into your local Twitter community, or to find people who are near to an event or issue that interests you.
   

 

• Twitterfeed If you have a blog, you can use this tool to automatically update Twitter with headlines and links to your latest posts. Useful for promotion - but just make sure this isn’t the only thing you use Twitter for.
   

 

• Twitpic Useful tool for posting specific photos online and sharing them with your Twitter posse. Works well for posting photos from a cell phone or computer.
   

 

• If you also use Facebook, you can use Twitter to update your Facebook status. Similarly, you can update Twitter from Facebook.

That’s all. Happy tweeting!

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