HootSuite is the web app formerly known as BrightKit, a Twitter toolbox that allows users to manage multiple Twitter profiles, schedule tweets and track links.

Features:

• easy to create account process
• add any number of Twitter profiles to your account
• ability to add multiple editors for each Twitter profile
• post live or pre-schedule tweets
• check stats and analytics
• search Twitter based on keywords
• all usual Twitter operations supported
• add RSS feeds and Google AdSense to Twitter profiles
• it’s Canadian

The Good:

HootSuite does just about everything you could want when it comes to managing your Twitter profile(s). Its list of features is lengthy, and there are a few that are rather interesting. HootSuite is designed for Twitter power users with communities that need “feeding”. The ability to add “editors” to a Twitter profile is key there, like having co-bloggers. Adding RSS feeds is a very useful feature. Perhaps best of all is the ability to monitor and manage multiple Twitter profiles from within one web application.

The Not-so-Good:

HootSuite has so many good features, it was a challenge to come up with things we didn’t like. We can, however, make a few suggestions for improvement. First, there is no auto-refresh feature, which is a bit frustrating. Secondly, although you can follow people from within HootSuite, there is no way to unfollow, nor is there a way to view your friends/followers. Thirdly, there is no way to mark a tweet as a favorite. With those features, HootSuite would knock it out of the park. One further thing: HootSuite incorporates Google AdSense into its links (half the user’s AdSense and half HootSuite’s). Monetization of Twitter may not appeal to everyone.

** Since we first reviewed HootSuite on 12 Feb 09, the developers have made some improvements to the statistics features, and it is now possible to mark tweets as favorites. Still waiting on the other things we mentioned. **

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★★★