New to Twitter? Use a Twitter client
I know that Rebecca has compared Twitter clients at some point, and I recall a post by John Biehler (that I couldn’t find) and one from Gary Jones by BlueFur explaining Twhirl, so apologies if I’m missing another one. Feel free to ping me and say “hey Raul you missed my blog post about Twitter“. I’ve previously written about Twitter etiquette, about the relevance of Twitter, about why I use Twitter instead of Facebook, etc.
At any rate, I recently connected on Twitter with two bloggers whose blogs I read, Sexy In VanCity (by Emme Rogers) and From Sparkly to Single (by Laura Smart) and made a suggestion, that they download a Twitter client. I haven’t tested many, having only tried Twhirl and TwitterFox (given that I am PC-based).
I love the fact that Twhirl picks up tweets where the @ is in the middle of the sentence (e.g. “How was your weekend, @hummingbird604?”). My recollection of TwitterFox is that it doesn’t pick up those tweets where the @ is in the middle, but since I only have Twhirl here, I have no idea.
I love the fact that TwitterFox accumulates ALL the tweets and replies (thus giving me a chance to see what everyone has been doing instead of browsing through pages of the Twitter website). It also reminds me of direct messages much faster than Twhirl does.
I love Summize aka Search.Twitter. You can search for your own @ replies and make sure that you haven’t missed tweets. But I’ve tried it already a few times and it still DOES miss some tweets.
SO WHAT’S YOUR TWITTER STRATEGY, RAUL?
Right now (while in Mexico) I open Twhirl, and browse the website for the last few pages of tweets. I know, a bit of a waste of time, but I feel a tad uncomfortable downloading the TwitterFox extension on my Mom’s FireFox. But last night I discovered she does NOT use FireFox so I might end up downloading the extension anyways.
Anyhow, since this post is mostly for Emme, Laura, Jonathon Narvey (who just recently joined Twitter) and those Twitter newbies (or those who use the web more often), those of you who are Twitter and Twitter-client pros feel free to chime in and explain why you prefer one client over another. And STOP praising Twinkle and Twitterriffic! I *can’t* use them because I’m PC-based! 
(ok, fine… you can talk about them, since I seem to be the only Vancouver blogger in addition to Dr. Beth Snow who uses PC – shame on us – that’s why you need to give us MacBook Pros!)
Related posts:
Twinkle is iPhone only and Twitterrific is terrible. Twitterrific looks okay, but is completely useless when talking about the actual functions versus, say, Twhirl.
I am a Mac user and use Twhirl – I honestly think it is the best Twitter client out there at the moment.
I’m with Twhirl, Raul. Love to see that @hummingbird604 popping up!
I’m PC-based, too, and I tried Snitter and TwitBox before settling on Twhirl. Snitter is an Adobe Air app, similar to Twhirl, but I found that it started having issues where it would start up but not poll for new tweets. In fact, I fired it up yesterday, and it was having the same issue, so I went back to Twhirl.
Like you, though, I’d recommend Twhirl for all Twitter newbies. And, yeah, I could stand a donation of a MacBook too
Cool! Thanks for the info Raul! Bookmarking and going to play with this later today, once all the work is done.
Have a fabulous day!
Emme
While I appreciate that Twitterrific is short on features when compared to Twhirl, I’d say it depends how you use Twitter. I’ve used both for quite some time and I’m settled on Twitterrific [for the Mac and for the iPhone] because the UI is clean and the Mac version is brilliant to use, for a few reasons. I’ll admit, though, that I didn’t get it at first, and did everything via web or with a Quicksilver script
Another Air application is TweetDeck, which does some more things with Twitter, allowing for better tracking of terms etc
And if you have a decent text plan, adding Twitter mobile is a must, even if only to send updates to your account. It really helps ‘get’ Twitter IMO.
Wow, a whole post dedicated to my silly question on Twitter! Okay not just mine. Hehe, anyway, very helpful. I will check out Twhirl since that seems to be the general consensus. Also? I am PC-based. Though hopefully not for too much longer.
I know John is a huge fan of Twitterfox. I for one, still haven’t moved off Twitteriffic. It was shaky to start but it’s much better recently.
Much obliged for the Twitter intelligence, Raul. I definitely plan on exploring it more in the next couple of days. You rock!
[...] getting to @hummingbird604 suggestion to use Twhirl, but Adobe Air isn’t available to Linux users. Anybody know of a [...]