Top 4 Twitter Clients

While I've been blogging for ages, I'm relatively new to Twitter but have recently been getting into it. The more you get into it, however, the more you realize that Twitter itself isn't really set up to make following easy, once you're following 15 or more tweeps. Some people clearly have a follow me / follow you policy, and therefore wind up following thousands of tweeps -- this is madness, as we all know they can't possibly read all of those tweets in the course of a week, let alone one day. All the same, I feel badly about not following perfectly nice people back, so I tend to do so. That said, I don't actually read most of them, as I just can't keep track, for the reasons I've just mentioned. So. What to do? How do you keep up with the tweeps you want to read, while subtly ignoring those you don't? Easy: You get a twitter client that allows you to sort those you're following into groups, as well as not sort some at all, if you know what I mean. The following are popular Twitter clients that will make your Twitter experience MUCH better than whatever it is now, and two of them allow for the groups I've mentioned.

(By the way, if you'd like to Follow Me on Twitter be sure to send me an @ message so I know to follow you back.)

Seesmic Desktop

I just installed this tonight and I am beyond thrilled with it. It's awesome. Fantastic. It's easily the best Twitter client available and whether you're a new tweep or an old one, I recommend installing it asap. With Seesmic Desktop you can create user groups -- as many as you want -- and scroll back and forth horizontally to keep track of them. You can also have your replies, private messages and searches in the same row of columns, and none of them will get in the way. And the layout, colors and text are so easy on the eyes you will have no trouble at all keeping track of everything. It's the bestest!

TweetDeck

This is what I was using before switching to Seesmic. Initially, I was very impressed, but my opinion quickly changed as the program froze up (itself, and my computer) on a regular basis. Even after this last update. If you compare the two, they both have groups but you're limited with TweetDeck, unless you want to expand your screen to the point you have to physically move it back and forth to see what's on it. The most I could get on the screen was 4 columns and I would prefer 6. There were a few minor perks with TweetDeck, but none that would make me consider going back to it.

DestroyTwitter

Destroy Twitter doesn't allow you to set up groups and the screen is limited in size, which drove me nuts -- I like my apps to take up the whole page and move between them via my nav bar. It allowed for 3 columns and the colors were limited to something very hard on my eyes. That and the text was difficult in terms of size and font. And the icons were very small, whch sometimes made if difficult to know who was tweeting. It does look sleek and spiffy but I found it hard to use on a regular basis.

TWhirl

TWhirl is a popular Twitter client, but it wasn't for me. It does fill the screen if you prefer but I get the impression it's meant to be a smallish rectangle like an AOL chat window or similar. It's nice that it allows you to see your followers and friends at a glance, but it doesn't allow any sort of groups and you've got to view everyone in one big queue. It looks nice; pretty, even, but it wasn't for me.