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Written by Kim Lau and posted in eHub Features • Organizing and cataloging • Statistics, tracking, testing • Twitter

After three years on the web, Twitter has become more than just another micro-blogging client. A whole industry of web applications have sprung up to extend and capitalize on Twitter’s capabilities, from the ridiculously silly, to the gobsmackingly useful. If Twitter is not already a part of your daily life, these applications can give you a whole new perspective on the idea of Getting Things Done. There’s a lot you didn’t know you could do with 140 character spurts.

For the most part, you can sign up for external Twitter applications with your existing Twitter account. Hopefully, soon, Twitter will have implemented OAuth for authentication, but currently, many Twitter mashups require you to enter your password.  We suggest you use caution when giving out your Twitter password.  In general, you do have to be familiar with Twitter’s syntax to use most services. For example, typing “d username message” means that you are directly sending a message to someone who is mutually following you. Many of the Twitter applications will require you to “follow” them in order to use the applications properly.

Financial

TweetWhatYouSpend is exactly what it sounds like. Keep your New Year’s resolution to get yourself financially organized by tracking your spending habits through this site. Sign up with your Twitter account, and chronicle your spending on Twitter or at TweetWhatYouSpend. On Twitter, use the TweetWhatYouSpend syntax by direct messaging the site with your purchases and amount spent. For example, you would type in “d twys groceries 46.00”. On the TweetWhatYouSpend site, you can categorize your expenditures, create your own categories, and export your cash journal to a csv file. Future features include joint accounts, tags, and a spending alarm to alert you when you hit your daily or weekly spending limit.

StockTwits is a Twitter community for people who are obsessed with stocks. Just log on with your Twitter username and password, and view the latest conversations from investors and traders on the stock market. StockTwits basically aggregates all financial and stock-related discussions, and allows you to add mentioned stocks to your portfolio, and participate in the conversation. On the StockTwits site, you can view the week’s Top Gainers and Top Losers, see who’s doing the most financial chatting, and check out the “buzz” surrounding individual stocks. The site is very easy to use.

Similar to StockTwits, FxTwits is a Twitter community centered around finance; the difference is that it’s focused on currency pairs. Do you need to know what’s going on with the American dollar against the euro? FxTwits captures Twitter discussions surrounding the foreign exchange rate. Just log on with your Twitter username and password.

CheapTweet is a Digg-like site that combines the power of Twitter users and search to scrape up the best bargains online. CheapTweet scours Twitter for mentions of good deals, and users vote on whether they think the deal actually is cheap, or “lame”. While you don’t need to join CheapTweet to check out deals, signing up will allow you to save deals. Along with voting, you can also retweet deals, or comment directly on the site. Shop for deals from places like Amazon and Etsy.

Currently in beta, Twizon searches Twitter for mentions of Amazon deals. Recent and popular deals are listed, and you can also check out what Twitter users are saying about the products. Products cover a wide range, from DVD sets to desktop hard drives.

TwitPay lets people tweet money over Twitter. All you need is your Twitter account, and then direct message the person you want to pay with the TwitPay syntax and list the amount you want to send. TwitPay charges a nickel for each transaction over 99 cents.

TipJoy allows you to give people money. TipJoy is an individual application with a Twitter feature. It lets you sign up using your Twitter credentials. Use the TipJoy syntax - for example, if you want to give money to someone you’re following on Twitter, tweet “p” with the amount and the user you want to give money to, and that’s it. You can also use “RTip”, “pay”, “tipjoy” and “give”, as long as you include the user name and the amount. TipJoy suggests using your Twitter credentials to start fundraising campaigns for your cause of choice, and gives you a great how-to guide.

Reminders & Tracking

Twistory lets you add your Twitter backlog to your favorite calendar application, whether it be iCal or Google Calendar. It’s useful if you’re a frequent Twitter user, and looks almost like a diary. Twistory only works with public accounts. New tweets are added immediately, and Twistory will also tag your tweets with timetracking tags if you use their syntax.

TrackThis will track your packages for you. Just direct message TrackThis on Twitter with your tracking code, and you’ll be notified via direct message from the site every time your package changes locations.

Postica is a separate sticky notes application with Twitter integration. You can sign up on Postica;s site, and give yourself little note reminders. Add Postica as a friend on Twitter, and direct message Postica with your reminders, tasks, and notes. Postica is currently in beta.

Scheduling

Future Tweets, Twuffer, TwitResponse and TweetLater are all applications to used to schedule tweets for your Twitter. It may seem a bit redundant at first glance, but these applications will provide you with more flexibility for Twitter. If you own a business and want to use Twitter as a marketing tool, you can schedule press announcements, highlight sales, and reminders to your followers. If you are using Twitter exclusively as a personal forum, you can schedule reminders about appointments, tasks, and give your friends birthday wishes on time. It’s all about how you want to use them.

Share Files

Twitter’s basic function doesn’t allow you to share files. TweetCube does, in a very simple manner. Just sign on with your Twitter username and password, and pick a file to upload. One warning: though TweetCube does not save your password, it does not hide it behind asterisks, either, so you may want to be careful about which Twitter account you upload files to. Twittershare lets you share files that are 10 megabytes or less. It’s based on the now-defunct Pownce’s API. Primarily for the iPhone, there’s also a web interface that is in beta, and Windows XP/Vista support is coming soon. TwitPlusis currently in beta. This is yet another service that permits you to share files on Twitter. The difference is that you can share files privately, which most other file-sharing services do not permit. Share pictures and files on your Twitter account, or share directly.  You can use TwitPic to share pictures on Twitter. Post from your phone or through the site, and browse the public timeline.

Track Health

TweetYourEats is currently in private beta. TweetYourEats aims to help you manage your eating habits, whether for health or for weight loss. They claim that they will also help you track your daily calorie intake, which is a definite boon to those who are watching the scale. TweetWhatYouEat is very similar to TweetYourEats, and is available for use. Like TweetYourEats, you can also track caloric intake on your account. Add TweetWhatYouEat as a friend, and a “diary” will be set up for you on the site. From your Twitter account, just direct message TWYE with your food and caloric data, and you can also add and delete stuff directly from your diary. FoodFeed is not diet-oriented, but it also helps you track what you eat. Just add FoodFeed as a friend, and FoodFeed will create a feed for you where you can mention what you’re eating. It’s very simple and elegant.

Multiple Accounts Management

Some power Twitter users have multiple accounts. People use them for all sorts of purposes - marketing, dealing with different social groups, or just find it fun. Here are a few applications to help you manage them.

HootSuite was formerly known as BrightKit, and is an all-in-one application. Manage multiple accounts, profiles, schedule tweets and reminders, and track statistics. It’s easy-to-use, and definitely a necessity for hardcore Twitter users.

GroupTweet is an application for sharing a single Twitter among your cohorts, family, or friends. Create a new Twitter account, or use an existing account and register it at GroupTweet. Make sure the people you want to join know about the account and encourage them to follow your group account. Then anyone in the group can direct message the group account and the message will be displayed to everyone in the group.

TweetParty is similar to GroupTweet in that it allows you to organize your Twitter contacts by “parties”. Add TweetParty as a friend, and then create your groups accordingly. When you want to send a message to the group, make sure you use the syntax #groupname when you direct message the appropriate party.

Splitweet offers easy management of multiple accounts, and is marketed as a tool for corporate users, though regular users can also take advantage of this application. Register with your email, create a password and enter a Twitter account to get started. Add your other accounts, and color-code them to track them, the contacts, and schedule reminders and announcements. You can also track your “brand” and see if other people are mentioning your Twitter.

EasyTweets is for brand management and marketing. Currently in beta, it’s a set of tools designed to help you with multiple accounts, brand tracking, and Twitter trends. To take full advantage of all the application has to offer, you’ll have to sign up for one of the paid accounts, which start at $25 a month. If you want to test it first, the free account lets you manage up to three Twitter accounts with restricted features.

Social is a beta group Twitter tool. Get a Twitter account specifically for your group or event, and register the new account at Social, and start managing from there. Get your audience to follow that account and participate in discussions, link-sharing, and more.

Twtvite is part of the twtapps family of simple Twitter applications. Twtvite lets you arrange “tweetups” and manage the responses, and provides you with code to paste on your web page.

Miscellaneous Utility

Commuter Feed collects traffic data from Twitter users. Join the Commuter Feed, find your city code, and start broadcasting traffic. Report on accidents, traffic jams, and freeway closures. When contributing, make sure that you are not texting to your Twitter while driving. Not only is this dangerous, but it’s also illegal (at least in California). The best thing about this feed is that it’s worldwide. You’re covered if you ever need to know traffic information in London.

Bkkeepr helps you track your reading on Twitter. It is a project of booktwo.org, a site devoted to book trends. Follow bkkeepr on Twitter, and direct message with the ISBNs of the books you’re reading. Bkkeepr will allow you to track the pages you’ve started and stopped at, and you can brag when you’ve finished your book.

Thsrs isn’t specifically for Twitter, but it’s very useful when you’re trying to think of something to say that will fit into 140 characters. It’s a shorter thesaurus. Type in a word, and Thsrs will find a shorter synonym for you.

Twtrip is another wonderful application from twapps. It is a simple travel organizer. Enter your Twitter user name, the dates of your trip and your location, and start tweeting to it. You can also meet up with other people who are in the same area as you.

Twitter has certainly sparked a lot of debate, interest and utility in a very short time span. From micro-blogging to marketing, from scheduling reminders to book-tracking, who knew that 140 characters could be so useful?

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Emily Chang is an award-winning strategic designer and co-founder and principal of Ideacodes.com, a web consultancy in San Francisco that focuses on the design and user experience of next generation websites, social applications and networked communities. Learn more...
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