This is a guest post by Alex Braz. Alex is a blogger from Slovenia who loves internet novelties and runs the Renton Blog.
Over the past year, Twitter has moved into the mainstream, and it has taken certain services and tools like TweetDeck with it. Most of us know the top 5 or so Twitter tools out there, but I wanted to share 10 more tools that will help round out your Twitter experience.
So let’s get started!
1. Swift FM
Let’s start with my favorite thing on Earth, music. I find myself always wanting to share songs with my friends and followers. Swift FM lets you log in with your Twitter ID and either upload a song, post a link to it or search a vast database for the song you want to share. Pure simplicity. But if you don’t believe me, one of the founders can tell you all about it.
An Introduction to Swift.fm from Swift FM on Vimeo.
2. Tweetwally
They say 3 million Twitter messages are generated every single day. That’s over 2,000 tweets per minute! There’s no way you can possibly go through all of these messages, but Tweetwally helps you filter them. You have four options: filter messages by hashtag, by keywords, by users that post the messages and by users that are mentioned. Messages are updated almost live, so you don’t have to refresh the page all the time. Plus, you can save your wall by signing in with your Twitter ID.
3. Snapatar
If you want to use your picture as a profile picture, but hate to go through the lengths of taking the picture, saving it and uploading it to your Twitter account, you can use Snapatar. A simple tool that will use your webcam to capture your face (or whatever you put in front of it, for that matter) and set it as your avatar in an instant.
After you snap it, you sign in with your Twitter ID and ta-da, your fresh picture is set as your avatar!
4. Chirps
Chirps lets you share a vocal message with everyone on Twitter. Just record a sound bite and then, you can post it directly to Twitter to share with your followers.
5. Screen Jelly
If you like to help people or just give tips, this tool is for you. Imagine your friend has trouble with some piece of software and you know how to fix it, but don’t have the luxury to actually visit that friend. How would you show what you do on your computer, so your friend could follow the example? Record it and twit it! Screen Jelly will record every move on your screen and everything you say for 3 minutes. Save it and post it on Twitter (and other social sites).
6. Camtweet
What if you want to broadcast a live feed of yourself, wishing everyone a merry Christmas? Tweeple (yup, I hate this expression) could be a part of that by you using Camtweet. Sign in with… wait for it… your Twitter ID and tell everyone on Twitter that you are going to broadcast live and then the tool will do just that.
7. Twi.tt
Twi.tt lets you can upload virtually any file you want and will post a link to that file on Twitter. Upload a picture, a video, a document, an audio clip or ask people something through a poll. Sign in the way mentioned before and use a simple form to upload your files.
7. Amplify
Now, you know how to post virtually everything on Twitter, but lets say you find an interesting article that you want to share with your Twitter followers. What are you going to do? Sure, you could simply give them a link to the article, but maybe you want to show only specific paragraphs and a picture, not a whole thing. With Amplify’s bookmarklet, you can do that in just a few steps.
Free Twitter Designer lets you make a custom background for your Twitter profile without the need of Photoshop. First you sign in with your Twitter ID and choose a background (a dozen of them). Then, you can add shapes, text and pictures, set all the colors and apply different filters. After all the tweaking is done, you can either save the outcome or export it directly to Twitter.
9. Listen To
I’ve already told you how to post your favorite music on Twitter, but the tool on Listen To is pretty useful as well. After you enter the information about the song and provide a link to it (mp3, YouTube or Meebo), it generates a page with the video and an option to tweet it immediately.
10. Listorious
Recently, Twitter added a list feature. Listorious gathers those lists and puts them into different categories. You can choose among art, news, sports, food, celebrities and so on. That way, you can find interesting people to follow, according to your interests.
Conclusion
There is a plethora of things going on in Twitterland, and there are tools to help make your experience the best it can be. I’ve shared tools that will upload pictures, broadcast live feeds, share your music or simply find someone to follow. These are only ten of the numerous services that are out there. What are your favorite lesser known Twitter tools? Share them with us in the comments.
Image by loop_oh
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