Courtesy flickr: novecentino

I’ve tried quite a few different twitter clients – and most of the time I talk about Hootsuite as my client of choice.  It made sense to talk about how I got to this point (and to be honest there are still a few things about Hootstuite I don’t like).

Tweetdeck

Platform: Adobe Air ∴ Windows, Mac, Linux
Website: www.tweetdeck.com

Tweetdeck was one of the first twitter clients and I believe led the way for what is now a very crowded market.  It provides a columnar style interface allowing you to create different columns for searches, users, lists, mentions & direct messages.  It’s initial color scheme is a little off-putting for some, it’s primarily black and yellow, however it can be easily changed.  I find myself visiting a color scheme generating site to find a good mix of colors to re-skin the interface.

Tweetdeck offer good integration to all the features of the twitter service include list management and retweeting.  Additionally it also provides preview functionality for links and images.

My personal experience with tweetdeck is that I found it very useful however also found it a little unreliable.  There were time when columns that I had added like mentions or searches simply weren’t populating.  There were a couple of other reports of people having similar problems – with no real resolution.   In all fairness I haven’t tried tweetdeck for a little while and so this issue may well be rectified by now.

Pros: Multiple twitter accounts (plus Facebook, LinkedIn), Broad Functionality

Cons: Download/Install required, Not very intuitive (subjective)

Mixero

Platform: Adobe Air ∴ Windows, Mac
Website: www.mixero.com

At one point in the past I was an avid Mixero user – in retrospect I wonder if it was only because I had a beta login to it.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good tool, but the learning curve is very steep.  Mixero takes a different approach to other twitter clients, rather than a column based approach it lets you build ‘contexts’ that represent different combinations of users/searchs/lists.  So you could for example build a context that lists 15 specific twitter users combined with a search for ‘iPhone’.  This provides a very powerful environment if you are will to put in the hours to figure it out.

A nice feature that I haven’t found in too many other clients is the ability to configure filters – so you can easily remove tweets based on a rule set you define.  It also provides previews of images and links in the same way tweetdeck does.

Pros: Very functional, filtering of tweets, ‘different’ to the rest

Cons:Download/Install required, steep learning curve

Hootsuite

Platform: Web based – I use Firefox
Website: www.hootsuite.com

Hootsuite is a web based twitter client which is a benefit if you are in a locked down environment where you need these tools.  Some IT departments (rightly) choose to deny you the ability to install software, hence this is a great alternative.

Hootsuite uses a columnar approach to twitter management, integrates to Facebook and LinkedIn and allows you to send one update to many accounts and services at once.  The color scheme is a little harsh sometimes with the blue and green – but you can look past that.

Hootsuite provide a business friendly function which allows you to have a number of different people managing the one twitter account – which I think is a huge benefit for many organisations starting in this space.  Additionally hootsuite includes it’s own URL shortening service (ow.ly) which works fine and integrates the statistics well however also presents an in-browser toolbar at the top of the viewed page which some people don’t like.  It does sometimes make it hard to grab the actual URL of the page and additionally doesn’t seem to work so well with tools like instapaper.

Hootsuite is only missing one or two elements to make it perfect (for me anyway).  I’d like the ability to add in my own URL shortenning service and additionally would like it to support the true twitter retweet functionality as opposed to the current “tweet with quote” approach.  However right now it’s my twitter client of choice.

Pros: Nothing to install, Multi-user support, good stats on your links

Cons: Minor functional deficiencies, Only one URL shortenner supported (it’s own)

There are dozens of other clients out there – let me know which one you use (and why).