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:

• integration with search.twitter.com
• auto-updating with Ajax
• snipurl.com support
• all Twitter operations supported

The Good:

Tweenky is a serviceable Twitter client, supporting all the usual operations and the ability to view friends’ timeline, @replies, your archived tweets and the public timeline. The best feature though, is the ability to search for any topic or keyword in Twitter, and view tweets that relate to it. A list of currently trending topics is provided.

The Not-so-Good:

Tweenky is in beta, so there could be changes as time moves on. The search tool for trending topics is a great feature. As a Twitter client, it covers the basics, but lacks support for multiple Twitter accounts. The auto-refresh feature on the viewing timeline cannot be manually configured, which is a drawback.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ♦♦♦

Features:

• website displays random tweets from public timeline relating to certain themes
• user selects from themes of love, hate, think, believe, feel or wish

The Good:

twistori really is a unique way to see a bit of the public timeline. It is part of an ongoing “social experiment”. It is interesting to contrast the themes, as tweets from two of them can be shown at any one time.

The Not-so-Good:

The only thing we didn’t like functionally about twistori was that there is no obviously apparent way to pause the flow of tweets. Other than that, it’s fascinating.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ♦♦♦

Features:

• login with Twitter username and password (required only if you wish to @reply, retweet or follow)
• predetermined trends or user selects custom trends to view
• ability to @reply, retweet or follow from tweets when logged in
• rate of cascading, number of tweets in view, theme and language all customizable by user

The Good:

Twitterfall is another good tool for viewing trending topics on Twitter. It is unique in that the tweets viewed actively cascade (like a waterfall). There are predetermined trends that can be selected, or the user can enter any keyword to follow. Tweets are pulled into the cascade pretty much in real time. Viewing the trending tweets does not require login, but if you wish to @reply, retweet or follow a user from within Twitterfall, then you need to login with your Twitter username and password. There is an option to show your own timeline.

The Not-so-Good:

Twitterfall is a very new application (just launched within the last week), so things are evolving and features added almost daily. As it stand, Twitterfall is a visually pleasing way to view tweets on trending topics. There is a concern over providing your Twitter password in the absence of a stated privacy policy.

Also, there is no obvious way to create your own tweet or DM from within Twitterfall, although you can do a workaround to accomplish those tasks (which is fine, really, because it wasn’t designed to do those things). If a trending topic isn’t active for a while, the app will close that off for you automatically, which means if you want to keep watching for it you have to re-do that one again.

Lastly, there doesn’t seem to be a logout procedure.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★

Features:

• simple, easy-to-use UI
• users select keywords, tweets containing related tips are displayed
• random tip generation feature

The Good:

If you are looking for tips about trending topics on Twitter (or any topic, for that matter), twtip does a good job of finding and displaying related tweets. Avatars are supported and links allow users to visit the Twitter profile of those tweeting the tips.

The Not-so-Good:

twtip does exactly what it says it will, and does it well. When we took it for a test drive, most of the tip tweets displayed were a little dated. That may not be twtip’s fault, but it was a curious thing.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ♦♦♦

Features:

• detailed graphic display of trending topics selected by users
• precise tracking of tweets with times and percentage of usage
• detailed “hot topic” information
• zoom detail on charts
• mouseover wikipedia information for hot topics
• dialog box shows recent tweets on hot topics
• ability to embed chart(s) in website(s)

The Good:

Twist is an excellent tool for those wanting detailed tracking analysis of trending topics in Twitter. Details are provided on the percentage of Twitter usage a topic represents and the time frame in which that topic was “hot”. The graphical display looks good too. You can even compare topics by separating them with commas in the search box.

The Not-so-Good:

We couldn’t really find much to complain about with Twist, which is a shame because we are really good at complaining. We did find one thing though: there does seem to be a delay between the live stream on Twitter and what Twist pulls up for individual tweets (the trending graph is current). Also (two things now), the only place you can drill down to individual tweets is from the “most recent tweets about this topic” window.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ★★★★

Features:

• simple UI, allows up to five search terms
• send resulting graph to others via email

The Good:

If you want to know how many times a particular search term appears in Twitter, then TweetVolume is for you. It is easy to use and the graphical display is appealing.

The Not-so-Good:

This is a “cute” little application, but won’t be useful for those wanting hardcore trending information. There is no facility, for example, to designate a time frame within which the keyword(s) appear in twitter.

Tweetwave.com rates it: ♦♦

Features:

• perform power searches for tweets
• view trending topics in Twitter

The Good:

Summizer uses the Twitter Search API to dig through the database for related tweets. If you’ve got a topic that you search for more often, you can save that search for later use for the sake of sparing your thumbs. Summizer also automatically pulls down the latest trending topics from Twitter, giving you a quick and easy way to see what’s on the collective mind at any given moment.

The Not-so-Good:

Summizer is currently focused solely on searching and trend watching, so it doesn’t offer any means of logging in, tweeting, or following users. Also, Summizer comes at a price: $4.99 from Apple’s App Store. Some say it accomplishes the same thing that Twitter Search does (running just fine thank you if you bookmark it on your iPhone®).

Tweetwave.com rates it: ♦♦♦