Twitter for Dummies - Laura Fitton [59]
Expanding Your Twitter World by Using Clients
Twitter’s open API means that enterprising and creative software developers are constantly creating applications, mashups, and entire services that feed off of the Twitter platform. For example, Figure 9-5 shows the desktop client TweetDeck.
Many of these third-party applications are Twitter clients, programs designed to let you update Twitter on your desktop or mobile phone, instead of having to use the Web interface or text-messaging. Many of these applications auto-load tweets from your Twitter followers. This is nice, because on the Web site, you have to actually click the Refresh button on your browser every few minutes to see what’s going on. Each of these applications have different ways of displaying, organizing, searching and letting you interact with tweets, making them a very diverse crop of applications. There is definitely a competition afoot to become the preferred way for most Twitterers to engage with Twitter. Whether a few clear leaders emerge or whether people continue to interact with Twitter dozens of ways remains to be seen.
Figure 9-5: Put Twitter on your desktop with a client such as TweetDeck.
Desktop clients
Many Twitter clients for your Mac or PC take the form of a software download that you install and run from the desktop. Most of these clients are based on a programming standard called Adobe Air. Adobe Air doesn’t come preinstalled on your computer, so if you don’t have it already, you’ll be instructed to install it when you download a Twitter desktop client. Adobe Air is a free program; so, in fact, are many of the Twitter clients that we talk about.
Anybody with a decent amount of programming know-how can create a Twitter client, but here are a few that stand out from the crowd because they’re particularly easy to use and offer the features that most Twitter users want:
Twhirl (www.twhirl.org): Based on Adobe Air, you can install Twhirl on any computer that runs a Mac, Windows, or Linux operating system. It has a slim, attractive, and unobtrusive window interface (as shown in Figure 9-6), which many avid Twitter users like. Importantly, Twhirl can switch back and forth between multiple Twitter accounts, which is handy for those users who keep separate personal and professional ones, or who run Twitter accounts for clients. It also works with several social-networking services, such as aggregator FriendFeed, open-source microblogging application Identi.ca, and video-chat company Seesmic (which owns Twhirl), so you can use many of your social tools in one place. The interface is semi-customizable, fairly easy to get the hang of, and currently free to use.
In spring 2009, Seesmic rolled out a beta version of its Twhirl replacement Seesmic Desktop. The new client offers many new features, an easier way to work with multiple Twitter accounts, and can subscribe to Facebook contents.
TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com): This free Twitter client, based on Adobe Air, is compatible with Mac, Windows, or Linux systems, just like Twhirl. If Twhirl isn’t hardcore enough for you, you’re in luck — TweetDeck is for the power Twitter user. The main selling points of TweetDeck are the ability to form specific groups of your contacts, integrated Twitter search, and multiple-column interface. Beyond that, you’ll find many of the same features as on Twhirl, including the ability to get content from more than one social network (Facebook, for example). TweetDeck is almost too functional for some casual Twitter users, but if you use Twitter frequently, you can’t easily beat seeing trending topics in a column or performing a detailed Twitter search right from your desktop. TweetDeck and Twhirl increasingly vie for the top spot as most popular desktop Twitter client, but it’s worth noting that approximately half of Twitter use seems to happen right at Twitter.com.
Figure 9-6: Twhirl has a stylish interface design.
Adobe Air
Most consumer applications, such as Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop, need to be written separately