Twitter Tools

There are several tools for Twitter out on the web for all different purposes. Today I am going to discuss a handful of the tools that I found to be interesting and useful.

Twitter Grader
I found this tool to be quite interesting and could be useful to users of Twitter. This tool is designed to give you a ranking of your Twitter page or of the Twitter account for anyone else. From the home page you simply need to enter the username of the Twitter account you would like to rank. Once you enter this information, Twitter Grader will create a report for you. This report will show the number of followers, number of users being followed and the number of updates. There is also a ranking assigned to the username. For example H&R Block on Twitter is ranked 51,477 out of 4,625,713. H&R Block has 3,552 followers, and they follow 3,421 users and have 1,233 updates. A combination of these figures gives them a grade of 98.9 out of 100. In addition to this information, you can also view a graph of the user history. This tool could be useful in creating or modifying your list of people you follow on Twitter. Over time you may find you are following a lot of people and you may not really be interested in all of them since some of them are no longer updating. Grading the people you follow can help you determine if someone is worth following or not.

Twinfluence
This is another interesting tool that could have similar uses to the Twitter Grader. What this tool does is measure the influence of a given Twitter user. For example Good Morning America (Twitter id gma) has an influence rank of #2 at 100%. This is based on a measurement of reach, velocity and social capital. The use of this tool is also similar to the Twitter Grader in that all that you must do is enter the Twitter username for the user you would like to evaluate. On the Twinfluence web site you can also view top 50 lists for each of the three evaluation categories.

Tweet Cube
This is a tool that will allow you to share files on Twitter. From the home page for this tool you will sign in to your Twitter account. Once you have logged in you will then upload the file you wish to share and type a message to accompany the file. You can upload a .zip, .rar, .pdf, .jpg, .png, .gif, .mp3 or .txt files. This tool would be useful for users who would like to share pictures with their friends or for companies who would like to offer users information that could be downloaded and stored locally so that it could be accesses outside the web.

SnapTweet
What this tool does is to post your latest picture on Flickr to your Twitter account. From the website for SnapTweet you simply need to provide your Twitter credentials as well as your Flickr URL to get started. You can tweet your latest photo by sending SnapTweet a direct message on twitter. You can also set up fully automated and tag-based posting. This post would be useful for users of Flickr who would like their photos to be easily viewable from multiple sources without having to do a lot of extra work.

TwInbox
This is a tool that could prove quite useful for Microsoft Outlook users. What this tool does is to essentially allow users to treat their tweets as e-mail messages. You can send updates from Outlook as well as receive updates in Outlook. When receiving updates, if the message is a reply or a direct message to you it will be marked as important in Outlook so that you can view it at a glance without having to go through messages to find the replies and direct messages. This tool can be used to help sort and organize your updates and fully integrate them with Outlook. To send replies, all you have to do is use Outlook's built in reply or reply all features to send a reply or direct message. There are many other features of this tool that can be found on the main website for the tool. This tool I believe can be very useful for people who are already regular users of Outlook and are looking for a little more organization with their social networking.

The tools that I have discussed above barely scratch the surface of the number and types of tools available for Twitter. Mashable provides a much longer list of tools available for Twitter, but again this would not be an exhaustive list of tools available. The many tools available can cover just about and need you would have to expand and help your usage of Twitter.