Twazzup is a web app that allows users to perform searches on Twitter.

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: ★★★★

Visible Tweets is a web app that allows users to view a stream of tweets on any search topic in a unique visual display.

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: ★★★

tweetzi is a web app that allows users to perform searches on Twitter.

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: ★★★

Tagalus is a web app that allows users to find definitions for #hashtags used on Twitter.

Features:

• simple web UI requires only entry of a #hashtag to search for definition
• definitions displayed are user-driven
• ability to comment or add definitions
• displays relevant Flickr and YouTube hits for the selected #hashtag

The Good:

Tagalus is a great tool to find out what all those #hashtags mean. It is easy to use and allows users to comment on existing definitions or add their own. You can create #hashtags and submit a definition too. Tweets using the selected #hashtag are displayed, and it is interesting to see any Flickr photos or YouTube videos that are related to the tag as well. Tagalus also offers a bookmarklet which allows users to search text selected from any web page they happen to be visiting.

The Not-so-Good:

We found nothing to complain about regarding the functionality of Tagalus. The only thing we could find to complain about is the appearance of the site, which is perhaps a little drab or ordinary (mostly a white field with few blue accents). As we said, none of that impacts on functionality, so who cares? It’s just a style thing, nothing more.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★

Tweleted is a web app that allows users to recover tweets after they have been deleted.

Features:

• simple web UI requires only the entry of a Twitter username
• search results display deleted tweets
• ability to check if a tweet is actually deleted or merely temporarily “vanished”

The Good:

If you need to or want to find tweets that you know or think are “missing”, then Tweleted is a great tool to let you do that. It is easy to use and is an efficient search tool. We liked the ability to confirm if any of the displayed tweets are actually deleted.

The Not-so-Good:

No complaints, really. Tweleted is a capable search tool for finding lost tweets.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★

WeFollow is a web app that allows users to find Twitter users based on tags.

Features:

• users send @reply to @wefollow with up to three #tags
• web UI ranks users by tag and number of followers
• all tags/keywords are searchable

The Good:

WeFollow is a good tool to find Twitter users based on #tags or keywords. It is not unlike other search tools, but the display ranks the results by number of followers. You can click and drill down for further info on each user, which includes their latest tweet, full name, website and other tags. A sidebar shows popular #tags and the Top 100 tweeters (again based on number of followers).

The Not-so-Good:

WeFollow is a fine search tool, but there were two points that we wanted to raise: 1) there is no feature to follow a Twitter user directly from within WeFollow – you have to go to the Twitter.com site, and 2) the measure of a “top tweeter” employed by WeFollow is solely the number of followers, not most active, most re-tweeted, which is fine, but some may want a more meaningful measure (some may not care, which is fine too).

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★

twitterex is a web app that allows users to perform a search on Twitter and have the results display an extended version of any URL along with an “abstract” of its contents.

Features:

• simple web UI requires only the entry of search terms
• search results are displayed as a list of tweets with extended URLs and abstracts of their contents
• avatars displayed along with tweets in search results

The Good:

twitterex is another tool that lets you search Twitter, with the added benefit of extending shrunken URLs and giving a short abstract of the content of the link.

The Not-so-Good:

While it is nice to have URLs extended, sometimes the abstracts weren’t available for display. Also, there is no indication of when the tweets were sent or by what Twitter client. Finally, hovering over the avatar shows you the link for the user’s Twitter account page, so there is no mechanism for following directly from twitterex.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★

Twemes is a web app that allows users to view tweets that contain hashtags (or “twemes” as the developers choose to call them).

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: ★★★★

tweeto’clock is a web app that allows users to determine when would be the best time to tweet a particular user.

Features:

• simple web UI – enter a Twitter username and click to calculate the time(s) they are most likely to be tweeting
• ability to tweet the selected user
• ability to tweet the results of the search operation

The Good:

If you need to know when a particular user is most likely to be tweeting, tweeto’clock is a great tool. It figures out which day and time they tweet most, and displays that as the search result. We like the fact that no password login is required to perform the search.

The Not-so-Good:

tweeto’clock carries out its stated purpose very well. There is little, if anything, to complain about in that regard. We’re not sure how accurate it is, but it seems to work fine. Okay, the website is a drab pale green color. There.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★

Who Should I Follow? is a web app that allows users to find other users to follow based on similarities to those already being followed.

Features:

• very easy-to-use UI
• simply enter Twitter username and go
• list of those you might follow is generated, along with info about similarities to those you already follow

The Good:

Who Should I Follow? is a good tool for quickly finding other Twitter users with similar characteristics to your existing group of friends. Info is provided on prospective followees including their location, a bio, number of tweets per day and other users to whom they are similar. There is a “follow” function, and the ability to see more users similar to the prospect. You can also drill down and get graphical information on tweets per day, replies per day and replies to per day. Kudos to the developers too for recognizing that the title of their application is grammatically incorrect.

The Not-so-Good:

The one thing we would like to see improved on Who Should I Follow? is the “follow” function. Clicking on the follow link takes you to your Twitter page where you then have to execute a follow command. It would be better to have a seamless follow function, along the lines of Mr. Tweet, for example. Other than that, this is a rather useful application.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ♦♦♦