Introduction
If you are reading this article while sitting under your rock then you probably have never heard of Twitter. For everyone else, you have either heard of or participate on Twitter.com. In this article we’ll take a quick look at 10 of the most popular Twitter apps, find out how to make your own Twitter app and see what makes Twitter tick.
Top 10 Apps
The apps below, listed in no particular order, are some of the most frequently downloaded of the literally thousands of apps that are available. If you are feeling brave and want to thumb through all of the Twitter apps you can begin browsing at http://www.twitter.com/downloads. If you just want to start with the most popular, then here you go:
- TwitPic – This simple application allows you to share photos along with your tweets. Imagine seeing your professor strolling through campus with toilet paper stuck to his shoe. It will take you about 30 seconds to snap a photo with your phone, compose a post and share your experience with your friends.
- TwtPoll – This app is a feedback tool that helps you create and distribute polls/surveys on Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and other social media sites. Want to know what your friends think about health care reform? Make a poll and share away.
- TwitterCounter – This is the popularity stat book app for Twitter. Browse followers, views, and other stats for participating Twitter users. You can even do side-by-side comparisons to see who is more popular.
- Twitterfeed – This one is an automated way to feed Twitter using your own blog’s RSS feed. It basically checks your regular blog RSS feed as often as you want it to and then automatically posts new blogs to Twitter. Quick, easy and painless.
- TweetDeck – This is the ideal app for the social networking junkie. It is basically a social networking browser that lets you get your Twitter, Facebook and other social network fixes all at the same time. This one is still in beta, so you may run across the occasional bug but don’t let that stop you from downloading it.
- Digsby – This one blends all your social communications together by giving you a single interface for email, instant messaging and social networking. It has a cool name too.
- Tweepler – With this app it’s all about organizing your followers in order to reduce the clutter. Not something you probably need for a dozen or so followers but as your numbers increase it can be a valuable tool.
- Twhirl – Like TweetDeck this app allows you to more efficiently view, post and manage your social networking sites. It runs on the Adobe Air platform and is compatible with most operating systems. It’s worth noting that Facebook is not one of the options. If you are huge into Facebook you may want to look at TweetDeck instead.
- Twit(url)y – The last two on our list are different than the top 8 in that they are not apps that you download and install but rather are web-based applications that provide a service. Twit(url)y ranks the most active posts so that users can see what the hot topics are at any given time. If you like to keep up with trends, this is the site for you.
- Hellotxt – This web-based app is another tool designed to help you manage all your social networking and micro-blogging. The biggest benefit to this service is the sheer number of sites that it covers including, of course, Twitter.
Making a Twitter App
Given the fact there are over a thousand applications already completing for Twitter, it won’t be easy to build something that hasn’t already been conceived. But, if you have that great idea and want to build your own application then you will first need to familiarize yourself with the Twitter API. From there you can build whatever your heart desires. Keep in mind, though, you will be doing this out of the kindness of your heart. It won’t pay for your retirement.
The Twitter Business Model
The Twitter business concept could have been taken from a Kevin Costner movie, “if you build it they will come”. And they have, in droves. They come because it’s free, easy and just plain fun. The money that Twitter receives comes in much the same way … easy. In fact, Twitter isn’t concerned at all right now with actually generating a revenue considering they still have a good portion of the $55 million of investor capital to work through. They only recently began looking into ways that a revenue stream could be generated. And yes, this is the point where you say to yourself “why can’t I ever come up with an idea that will make people want to throw money at me?”
Conclusion
Twitter is one of the most popular social networking sites out there today. It is primarily responsible for starting the micro-blogging craze and is used by people, businesses and politicians all over the world. With the Twitter nation rapidly expanding, the apps listed in this article, along with some of the thousands of other Twitter apps out there, will help reduce the time consuming nature of social networking. Happy tweeting!
