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:

• 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:

• 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
• uses Adobe Air platform and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux
• high level of customization
• TwitPic supported
• ability to “freeze” feed while “away” to limit API calls

The Good:

DestroyTwitter is a great Twitter client. The UI is appealing (doesn’t look unlike TweetDeck in some ways), easy to use and offers good customization. A visit to the website shows that the application is in a constant state of improvement (Beta release 1.4.4 now), which is good. The developers are serious about the product.

The Not-so-Good:

We liked DestroyTwitter a lot. A couple of points spring to mind though for improvement: (1) there is the “manage multiple Twitter accounts” feature that would be great on all applications (but you can’t have everything, can you?) and (2) some of the commands/instructions are not obvious to the user (you have to visit the website to find out more about the commands) – it would be nice to see some more information on that from directly within the app itself. Other than that, it’s good stuff.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★★

Features:

• all Twitter operations supported
• loads in browser or install as widget
• avatars and special characters supported
• user configured refresh rate
• AJAX based

The Good:

Twitter Gadget is a very good Twitter client. It can run in your browser or as a “gadget” that can be inserted into Gmail accounts. Twitter Gadget boasts quite a few features, but the standouts are the search capability, the level of user configuration and the fact that the app is AJAX based.

The Not-so-Good:

Twitter Gadget seems a robust Twitter client, but we would dearly love to see it handle multiple Twitter accounts. Some of the features are more intuitive than explicit, but once figured out, it all comes together well.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★★

Features:

• web UI displays a tag cloud for trending topics
• click on tag to display tweets containing that hashtag
• tweets allow for @replies and blocking the sender
• RSS feed and widget available for selected hashtag
• Flickr and Del.icio.us support

The Good:

Twemes is a good tool to track trending conversations in Twitter according to hashtag. Flickr photos and Del.icio.us bookmarks are also pulled in by Twemes. The RSS feed is a very nice feature, so you can just set up the topics you want to follow and not have to check back again and again.

The Not-so-Good:

Twemes works rather well. We think they might be fighting an uphill battle trying to talk about “twemes” instead of hashtags, but that’s not for us to decide. We thought it was a bit odd to have a “block” feature and not a “follow” one, but these are trifles.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★★

Features:

• web UI “piggy-backs” on Twitter via the Twitter API
• easy process: create new Twitter account, register at GroupTweet.com, group members follow it, send tweets to group as DM to registered account

The Good:

GroupTweet is a very good tool to send private tweets to select groups. It would work well in a corporate or club setting. The process required to get it to work is simple.

The Not-so-Good:

GroupTweet has a singular purpose, and carries that out very well. The only thing we can pick on is the apparent lack of a stated security policy regarding protection of passwords (they may well be protected, but that isn’t indicated).

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★★

Features:

• simple web UI
• allows users to announce trip details
• shows other users at the same location during the same time
• shows tweetups at the same location

The Good:

twtTrip is a great way to tweet about your trips. If you include the hashtag #twttrip in your tweets between the dates you are traveling they will be collected and displayed on the URL generated by twtTrip.

The Not-so-Good:

twtTrip is easy to use and does a great job of tweeting trips. It is relatively new and needs to pick up some steam, but when it does, it could rival other similar applications that work outside of Twitter.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★★