Twackle is a web app that displays tweets about sports leagues, players, teams and events.

Features:

• web UI requires login with Twitter credentials (including password)
• tabs display tweets from major sports
• news features and user-configured tab to show only feeds you want
• widget available

The Good:

Twackle is a great tool for collecting and viewing tweets about your favorite sport(s). You can tweet and @reply directly from within Twackle as well. A widget is even available to allow you to “tweet on Twackle” no matter what web page you are visiting.

The Not-so-Good:

We found little to complain about on Twackle. For sports nuts, it is the place to be. There is a lot of talk these days about security and protection of your Twitter password. A Twitter password is required to login to Twackle. Use of the site is governed by a lengthy “Terms of Service” document which, according to the fine print, becomes a contract between the user and Octagon, Inc., the provider of the service. There is a lot of language about what Octagon, Inc. can do with your data and how Octagon, Inc. can be protected. The protection of your data boils down to a standard statement saying that your data will not be disclosed unless required by law or to protect Octagon, Inc.

Why spend so much time on this issue? For one thing, the policy/contract is far more detailed than most such statements we see out there for third-party Twitter applications, and most of those are never read by users anyway. Is this one unusual or problematic? Not really, but users should take the time to think about these things and decide for themselves what is acceptable.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★

StatTweets is a web app that allows users to get news, live game scores, standings, rankings, point spread updates and others stats of favorite basketball or football teams all from Twitter.

Features:

• StatTweets is part of the StatSheet Network (which includes StatSheet.com and StatFix.com)
• covers NBA, NFL, College FB and College BB
• follow the Twitter account of the team you want stats for, stats get sent

The Good:

StatTweets covers a lot of territory. There is a Twitter account for each team (like @CowboysStats) to which users send a reply using a specific syntax. Moments later that account will send out the desired stats. StatSheet.com is for more hardcore sports stats enthusiasts. StatFix.com delivers a college basketball stats widget.

The Not-so-Good:

The setup can be a little tricky (especially if you have no idea what a “syntax” is), but once set up, the stats provided are quite good.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ♦♦♦