Features:

• straightforward UI
• real-time Twitter feed
• Twitter search capability
• trend monitoring via tag cloud

The Good:

Twitscoop is a good Twitter client. It has all the functionality of Twitter.com with a very good search feature. The tag cloud for trend monitoring updates in real-time as well.

The Not-so-Good:

While Twitscoop is a serviceable Twitter client, it lacks multiple Twitter account support, something that is becoming more and more useful as users operate more than one Twitter account. It does boast link shortening but does not have the ability to display videos or photos “in-line”. These are not huge issues, but would be nice to have.

Tweetwave.com Rates It: ★★★★

Features:

• simplistic web UI
• search terms displayed as dB meters
• links to search terms via Twitter or Twoquick

The Good:

Trendmetr is a simplistic graphical representation of the frequency of various terms or trend in Twitter. Below each ‘meter’ are a couple of links that allow users to search the term on Twitter or Twoquick.

The Bad:

While the idea of a graphical representation of trending topics on Twitter is a good one, the execution of that idea by Trendmetr is woefully inadequate. Try as we might, we could find no way of selecting our own search terms. When we added ‘meters’ we were presented with terms like ‘hate my job’, ‘dinner’ and ‘insomnia’. Trendmetr has the potential to become a useful trend tracker, but in its present form it is nothing more than a diversion.

Tweetwave.com Rates it: ★

Features:

• UI similar to Twitter.com
• all Twitter operations supported
• multiple Twitter accounts supported
• advanced search feature
• keyword and trending topic features

The Good:

TwitIQ is a good Twitter client, some say it it Twitter.com “plus”. It has all the functionality of Twitter with the added benefit of multiple account support. The advanced search and keyword features are pretty handy as well.

The Not-so-Good:

While TwitIQ is certainly a very serviceable Twitter client, complete with URL shortening and saved searches, there are a few things that would be nice to see added at some point in the future. There is no support for photo posting and TwitIQ is unable to display inline videos and photos like PowerTwitter does. These aren’t huge issues, but rather bell and whistles we would like to see.

Tweetwave.com Rates It: ★★★

Features:

• easy to use web UI
• trending topics displayed
• save searches
• search results (tweets) displayed in real time
• popular related links displayed

The Good:

Twazzup is a very good search tool for Twitter. The ability to display resulting tweets in a real-time stream is a fantastic feature. We liked the related links feature, and the ability to sort results by retweets and tweets is also a powerful feature.

The Not-so-Good:

Twazzup is a very good tool. Our only complaint, and it isn’t a big one, is that sometimes it almost seems like there is too much information crammed into the display page. It’s all good information, but there’s a lot of it.

Tweetwave.com Rates It: ★★★★

Features:

• simple web UI
• colorful, cascading display of tweets
• search on any term(s)

The Good:

Visible Tweets is an interesting way to display a stream of tweets on any given topic. Tweets are displayed one at a time on a colorful background, with one tweet cascading/rolling into the next.

The Not-so-Good:

The visual display of Visible Tweets is rather appealing, and we liked it a lot. While Visible Tweets can search on any term or trend, it is not a hard-core search tool. It doesn’t pretend to be, which works out just fine.

Tweetwave.com Rates It: ★★★

Features:

• easy-to-use web UI
• displays Twitter trends
• refine searches with up to six parameters

The Good:

tweetzi  is a very easy-to-use and capable Twitter search tool. We liked the ability to refine searches using parameters such as “links related to” the search term or “asking about” the search term. Daily Twitter trends are displayed so you can hit those as well, if you wish. One other good feature of tweetzi is the ability to turn on a real-time results stream. This is great for keeping up to date on important trends or topics.

The Not-so-Good:

There wasn’t much we didn’t like about tweetzi. The Help feature is very “helpful”. If we have to choose something to find fault with (and we do), all we can really say is that the appearance of tweetzi is a little bit on the “industrial” side. That is merely a superficial complaint about style. The functionality is very good indeed.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★

Features:

• sign in using Twitter credentials
• post questions with optional reward, deadline and topic category
• ability to mark questions as favorite
• RSS feed for all questions posted
• “hotlist” feature showing top topics, questions and rewards as well as top questioners and “answerers”
• user configurable settings for auto-following and visibility
• search feature

The Good:

TweetBrain is a great crowdsourcing tool for Twitter. You could post your questions directly to Twitter, but with TweetBrain your question will almost certainly be looked at by more people than already follow you (unless you are @cnn). The tool is easy to use and generates some interesting feedback. Every question you ask is posted as a tweet. It is also possible that TweetBrain could help you get more followers, given its “viral” potential.

The Not-so-Good:

So far, we like TweetBrain quite a bit. Some may have concerns about the sign-in procedure with full Twitter credentials, but that issue is addressed in the FAQ: OAuth will be used when it is ready. We’re not too sure about the reward feature. TweetBrain uses PayPal to facilitate payment of the (often nominal) reward that any user can assign to their question. That feature may not appeal to some users, but the good news is that it isn’t mandatory.

Tweetwave.com Rates it: ★★★★

Features:

• utilizes Adobe Air environment
• ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts
• ability to create groups and lists, and split feeds into columns
• TwitPic support and video capture via drag and drop
• search feature allows users to track any topic

The Good:

Seesmic Desktop is the latest offering from the gang that brought us twhirl. Perhaps it is “twhirl plus”. Seesmic Desktop brings everything together into one user friendly UI. There are a number of useful features, chief among them the ability to create groups (user lists) and split feeds into columns. Also important is the ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts. The “drag and drop” feature for TwitPic support is a nice tool as well. Seesmic Desktop is in the very early stages of release, and many things are planned for the future. Presently, it provides a very good foundation to go places.

The Not-so-Good:

We are bearing in mind that there are more features planned for Seesmic Desktop (it is in “Preview” release now), but there are a few things that we would like to see: (1) the ability to manage other social networking tools, (2) the ability to schedule tweets for future transmission, (3) having the “follow user” feature available in all columns, not just the home column and (4) having the ability to re-size columns if desired. We know some of these are already on the way.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★★

Seesmic Desktop Preview

Features:

• simple, customizable UI
• written in C++
• all Twitter operations supported
• Twitpic supported
• Windows Media Player integration
• compatible with all Windows Mobile devices

The Good:

There is a lot to like about Twikini. The developer’s goal is to make Twikini the “best designed Twitter app for Windows devices in the world.” That is a lofty goal, but Twikini is off to a very good start. The download and installation process is simple, the UI is clean and uncomplicated and the ability to integrate with Twitpic and Windows Media Player is great. GPS is also supported so you can update your location any time you tweet. There are four different UI themes and a character counter to help when tweeting.

The Not-so-Good:

Only a couple of things jumped out at us in this category. The first was that when viewing tweets, Twikini displays the user’s “actual” name and not their Twitter @username, and we couldn’t find a way to tweak that in the customizations. Not a big deal, really. The second thing was that Twikini does not support more than one Twitter account at a time. You can switch between Twitter accounts, but you have to login each time you switch. This doesn’t detract from Twikini’s usability, but it is a bell (or whistle) that sure would be nice to have.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★★

Features:

• all Twitter operations supported
• search capability
• good customizations available
• uses OAuth login

The Good:

Airmailr is a good Twitter client for Mac OS X. It is presently in early beta release, so there are bound to be a few bugs here and there. We liked the UI, the look and the level of customization. We also liked the use of OAuth.

The Not-so-Good:

As we mentioned, Airmailr is in early beta release along with the requisite potential for bugs. Airmailr stacks up pretty well as a good Twitter client. One thing we noticed was that, although avatars are supported, their appearance felt a bit “pinched”.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★