Last night I had the honor to moderate a panel as part of Triangle Tweetup. The event welcomed nearly 300 Twitter users from the Raleigh-Durham area to Bronto Software in Durham for food, fun, and great networking. As part of the event we held a mini-panel to discuss how some local organizations were using Twitter. The entire panel discussion is on video below. I hope you will join us for our next Triangle Tweetup or host a similar event in your city!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Twitter is really hot right now, which means the number of third-party applications developed using the Twiter API is growing rapidly. One of the largest sectors for growth is the desktop Twitter application market. Most people that use Twitter do so through desktop applications instead of the Twitter web interface. Most Twitter desktop applications are built using Adobe’s AIR platform and use the twitter API to allow users to send and receive messages and use Twitter search.

With the announcement of the Seesmic desktop application the space is beginning to get crowded. So which one should you use? Which on is the best?

Those are two very different questions. All of the major Twitter applications need improvements and depending on the type of Twitter user you are will impact which application you like the best. I am going to go through and list the pros and cons as well as “who” should use the top 4 applications: Tweetdeck, Yahoo Sideline, Seesmic, and Nambu. Additionally, I have included a video walk through of all of the apps if you would like to get some additional feedback.

Note: All of these applications are currently free.

Tweetdeck

Pros: Tweetdeck in recent months has emerged as the gold standard for Twitter desktop applications because of its layout, twitter search features, 12seconds.tv integration and overall design and performance.  When compared to the four apps reviewed in this post Tweetdeck has been in development the longest and as you would suspect has a deep set of features and a refined design. Tweetdeck integrates most of the URL shortening services along with tweet shrink which helps shorten your message to fit the 140 character limit.

Cons/Suggested Improvements: For an app that feels polished and is out of beta, I have had a lot of problems with it crashing in OS X. Additionally Tweetdeck can be a big RAM hog and really slow down your computer. The black color scheme does not blend well with other applications windows and needs to be changed.

Who Should Use It: If you have a powerful laptop and desktop with plenty of RAM and want the feel of a polished app with all the bells and whistles then Tweetdeck is the desktop app for you.

Yahoo Sideline

Pros: Yahoo maybe in decline, but it still has people that build clean useful applications. Sideline which allows a user to track search terms and trending topics on Twitter search is fast and extremely stable for a new app. It is easy to use and the design aside from the color scheme is spot on. The tabs for saved searches work well and will make sense to most users because they are like the tabbed web browsing experience.  The ability to add multiple search terms under one tab is also a key feature.

Cons/Suggested Improvements: Sideline is a one-trick pony, despite the fact that it is a good trick, the lack of other features won’t work for some users. Sideline is strictly search, to reply to a tweet that you see in Sideline, you must click the reply button, but it will take you to your Twitter.com page to actually type and send your reply. Sideline also doesn’t have many other features that regular Twitter users have come to use heavily like direct messages and URL shortening.

Who Should Use It: Sideline really only serves a niche of the Twitter comunity. It is best for companies that want to monitor but not participate in Twitter and for Twitter “power” users that are following too many people and need a better way to filter tweets.

Seesmic

Pros: Seesmic desktop is clean, has the look of an OS X application and is very user friendly. Though just released and still in beta you can tell the app has been well conceived. Seesmic desktop supports multiple twitter accounts, provides single or multi column viewing options, and allows for new columns of saved search terms. Additionally it lets you group people for further filtering and supports many popular URL shortening services. The left hand navigation makes it easier to access columns and is faster than scrolling like Tweetdeck users have to do.  It also features a mute button for the sound effects, which is a nice touch.

Cons/Suggested Improvements: From the start you can tell the Seesmic’s new desktop client is still in beta. It is buggy and needs further tweaking. Having to click to add a link versus just having a blank below the message box will be a turn-off for many Tweetdeck users. For me and many others the inability to adjust column width and placement easily is the biggest usability hurdle the app faces. Columns are not wide enough, but at the same time individual tweets are taking up too much space.

Who Should Use It: People who do or did like using Twhirl will feel at home with this app, as will users who still haven’t fully embraced the design and UI of Tweetdeck. Seesmic though much like Tweetdeck seems friendlier to new users, but will likely not convert many loyal Tweetdeck users.

Nambu

Pros: For Mac users Nambu is a Twitter client that has burst onto the scene and gotten a lot of early adoption and positive feedback. Though Nambu uses columns like Tweetdeck and Seesimc the remainder of the user experience is different. The message composition box is on the bottom instead of the top. One of Nambu’s killer features is the ability to search and filter words within columns, meaning you could see all of your replies about a certain keyword instead of having to hunt and peck for them. Nambu also supports one or multiple column viewing as well as URL shortening. It uses growl to check for software updates. Instead of offering shortcuts such as replies over profile images it has an action icon on the far right of each tweet and action icons at the top of each column.  It is a clean refined app that doesn’t crash and runs really fast.  It also threads replies in the sent messages column which is really nice!

Cons/Suggested Improvements: Nambu is Mac only so it is going to leave a lot of folks out who use PCs. Additionally the compose box should be bigger and I am not a huge fan of having it on the bottom. The action icon with the drop options still seems a little out of place and needs to be refined.

Who Should Use It: Mac owners who want a native desktop app that is lightning fast and packed full of features will love Nambu. Long term users of Tweetdeck and Twhirl will be thrown off by the UI changes but if they can stick it out will be rewarded with a strong user experience, but few will probably have the patience to.

For an additional look at these four applications please take a few minutes to watch my video walk through:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Did this review help? Which app will you use?

Don’t shoot me. I know you and everyone else on this planet is sick of hearing about Twitter every time they turn on the TV or the computer. Twitter is so over-saturated and exposed that it is hard not to be completely fed up with the frenzy. However, with this frenzy has come a lot of new interest in Twitter and I have received many questions asking: “Why is Twitter so great?” “What makes it better than my blog or Facebook?” “Why do I need yet another service?”

Twitter isn’t better than any other service nor can it make miracles happen, but it has a killer component that goes under discussed and remains the primary reason everyone is plugging their twitter username. Twitter is public word of mouth. Read that last sentence again.

Individuals and marketers have always sought out the promotion holy grail that is word-of-mouth marketing.  It does have its limits though. In the pre-digital age word-of-mouth was limited to public conversations and then facilitated on a larger scale by media outlets. As we got digital this all changed. E-mail forwarding become a very popular word-of-mouth method that users adopted from e-mail.

The problem with e-mail and even social networks is that the conversations that happen there are private. Limited to the people who get or are passed a long the e-mail. Or in the case of something like Facebook limited to who you are friends with.  Twitter changed this.

Twitter is limited by nothing, because all conversations are public (unless you choose to make a profile private). A conversation I have with my friend Wayne on Twitter is a free-for-all. It can be “heard” by people following each of us, people looking at the public time line, people using twitter search, people using Google or someone using one of the 2,000 applications built on the Twitter API. This openness makes makes for a full-on word-of-mouth sprint where everyone’s data is competing for attention.

This is why P Diddy wants to be on Twitter, not just for the 300,000+ people that follow him, but for the millions he reaches because of Twitter’s publicly sprawling data.

This week marks the start of one of the years biggest interactive conferences: South By South West Interactive in Austin, TX. While this will be 5 days of none stop discussions on all things related to interactive communications, social media and the future of the web, not everyone can make it to Austin.  In this difficult economic year many people will not have the time or the resources to make it. Because of this I have put together a list of the best ways to follow all of the SXSW action online.

1.Twitter Search

This first one is a no brainer. Twitter has been a staple of SXSW for the past two years and don’t expect for that to change this year. Twitter Search will be a never ending stream of interesting information coming from Austin. I suggest using Tweetdeck, Tweet Grid, Twitterfall and open searches for #SXSW and #SXSWi and watch knowledge start dropping.

2. SXSW FriendFeed Room

If you are looking for a one stop shop for all forms of media surrounding SXSW and you want it all in one browser page than I recommend you take a look at the SXSW 2009 FriendFeed room which has many contributors and pulls in Twitter search feeds as well as other relevant info related to SXSW.

3. Talks Social News

So this one is a shamelss plug, but I had to do it. Wayne Sutton and I will be posting lots of pictures and videos as well as doing daily podcast episodes from Austin on our podcast website TalkSocialNews.com. If you want SXSW information then we have you covered with our own unique take on the conference.

4. Google Blog Search

This may seem like a simple one, but if blogs are you thing, I recommend setting up an RSS feed for “SXSW” blog search results in Google Blogsearch which should deliver any SXSW related posts straight to your feed reader. For extra credit try multiple search terms like “SXSWi” and “South By South West Interactive” and blend them into one RSS feed using Yahoo Pipes.

5. Twitter Local

One Twitter related service that flies under the radar is Twitter Local.  Download the Twitter Local desktop application and then enter “Austin, Texas” and it will delver you a constant stream of tweets from every one in Austin including the 12,000 people at SXSW!

6. SXSW.Alltop.com

Alltop is an aggregation site started by entrepreneur and author Guy Kawasaki. The site has pages dedicated to aggregating information on a variety of subjects including SXSW. The Alltop SXSW page offer Twitter search results, Del.cio.us tags, Google News and many other sources of information all on one browser page.

Sure their are other ways to track SXSW, but to me these are the best ways to aggregate information related to SXSW and it is almost as good as being there. If you happen to be reading this and are attending SXSW please travel safely and I look forward to meeting you there.

P.S. If you would like to meet at SXSWi sending me a reply or a direct message on Twitter is probably the best way to connect!

Today the interwebs are buzzing with the latest announcments from Facebook.  With today’s announcements Facebook is taking direct aim at Twitter. It has been reported, that last year Facebook tried to by Twitter for $500 million and Twitter declined. Twitter is really hot right now and many celebrities and businesses are using Twitter to reach their fans. With these two groups goes a lot of money and potential for being profitable. That is why today Facebook rolled out changes to its service to make it more real-time, like twitter and removing friend caps and private pages to make it more celebrity friendly.

With these changes by Facebook I have seen TONS of people commenting and tweeting that this is the end of Twitter and these changes will hurt Twitter badly. No they won’t.

Here are 6 reasons why:

1. Facebook and Twitter are completely different types of networks. Facebook is a network where you know the people personally and care about connecting with them. Twitter is a network in which you don’t know the people but instead care what they have to say and get to know them through the information they share.
2. Twitter is simple, Facebook is not so simple. It is not that Facebook is hard to use, because it is not, but compared to Twitter’s 140 characters; Facebook’s status updates, picture and video uploads, profile pages and the rest are much more complicated. Complicated isn’t bad, but it again means regardless of its changes Facebook can never be Twitter.
3. Information is accessed and delivered differently.  Facebook is a web portable with mobile web applications that keep all of its many features intact, that is if you have a phone with a web browser. Facebook can alert you via e-mail when certain actions happen, but otherwise you need to be sign in to the desktop or mobile version to use the service.  Twitter instead can be accessed through web, desktop apps, SMS and third-party applications.   More importantly Twitter can deliver updates, replies and direct messages through SMS making it open to anyone with a cell phone and making it a much more mobile network.
4. Twitter is Public, Facebook is Private. Facebook has always been a walled garden meaning that you had to be signed in to Facebook to see any part of Facebook. With Twitter profiles and messages are public unless your request that they be public. This means that in terms of data, search engine indexing and other open applications Twitter has a major advantage.
5. Twitter has Twitter Search. Looking back on Twitter’s first few years as a company, one of the smartest things they did was to purchase Summize and make it Twitter Search allowing for real-time searching of information on Twitter. This has lead to endless possibilities for monitoring trends, events, and everything else. This information is very valuable and will be at the core of how Twitter will make money. Facebook can’t and does not have this.
6. Twitter’s API beats Facebook’s applications. This final point gets back to the idea of the walled garden idea of Facebook. Twitter has a rich API that has lead to the development of thousands of applications that use Twitter. Many people use Twitter without ever going to the web interface. Instead to access Facebook applications you must be signed into Facebook. This type of closed approach to development limits the way people can use the applications and how the application developers can make money.

Facebook is a giant force in the social networking space and with 175 million users and counting will not have any problems with long-term growth and success. My point is that regardless of the changes Facebook makes, it won’t be Twitter. Twitter will have its own opportunities for growth and the two services should have no problem coexisting.

These changes aren’t the death of Twitter, rather they validate the power of Twitter.

Yesterday we held our second meeting of Social Media Breakfast Raleigh. We had a great turnout and I would like to thank everyone who came out to participate. As part of the event I asked Jeff Cohen to speak for a few minutes talking about how the volunteers of Raleigh Twestival used Twitter to market the event, which raised money for Charity Water.  Jeff went a step farther and created this blog post to outline the 11 steps people should take when promoting an event on Twitter.  I recommend you check out his blog post. It is good stuff. I also did a quick video of part of his talk which I have included in this post.

Click here to view the embedded video.

For folks getting started with Twitter and are trying to understand its applications this is a prime example of one of them.