Twitter Tools

Just what is Twitter?  Twitter has been described as microblogging or a combination between instant messaging and blogging.  Check out this video from Common Craft:  Twitter in Plain English to learn more.

Now, I'll admit that it took me a while to "get" Twitter.  I was using the main Twittersite to read the info that was being posted by those I was following.  When I had to remember to check the site everyday, I didn't really see the benefit.  I noticed that people were posting from locations other than Twitter.  I began investigating the sites I saw posted and found that there were several applications that served as aggregators that displayed Tweets in a variety of manners.  There were applications that allowed you to embed Tweets into an existing page, such as your iGoogle homepage, those that allowed the Tweets to be viewed in the browser sidebar and those that displayed them in a window that sits on top of other applications. 

I have have two favorite aggregators:

Twitbin - a firefox extension that posts tweets in a sidebar when your browser is open

Twhirl - sits on top of other applications and periodically displays Tweets as they occur.

There are many sites that list various Twitter tools.  Here are a couple of the more comprehensive lists:

58 Twitter Apps

Twitter Downloads