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• Tweeting just a tidal wave of drivel

Oh Twitter. It’s one of things that some people get and some people just don’t. The latter are all like: “why the hell would I wanna read about what you eat when you are feeling sad at 3am?” and cannot understand the appeal or value of a 140-character or less digital utterance. But the rest of ’em have embraced the site and figured out just how to maximise its use. Here’s a quick look at the different ways you can make Twitter better for you.

Hootsuite (hootsuite.com): Hootsuite lets you manage more than one Twitter account, shrinks long URLs, and it allows you to monetise your Tweets via Adsense.

Tweetdeck (tweetdeck.com): A desktop application created with Adobe Air (only for Desktop version) which allows users to filter and group their own and others’ tweets. This is pretty handy because on Twitter, anyone could follow you. And it’s harder to say no to them than you think – sooner or later you end up with so many people – you are unsure of what you can say anymore, hence groups.

Tweetglide (tweetglide.com): A desktop application for Windows and Mac allowing users to track their followers, tweets and direct messages plus transfer targeted traffic onto their e-mail lists via direct ad-space. TweetGlide also allows users to tweet over the 140 character limit.

Heapr.com: A search engine that displays Google and Twitter results side by side. The awesome thing about Twitter is that search results are in real time which is a pretty powerful advantage, as Google News is only updated every few hours. Real time, as it suggests is live. You can also download a browser plugin which will allow you to search from the top right of your browser. And best bit? Heapr is 100 percent ad-free.

Yoono (yoono.com): A Firefox extension that supports Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and all IM (MSN, GTalk, AIM, Yahoo). With Yoono you can share images, videos and text of any web pages.

TwitrPix Express for Firefox: A Mozilla Firefox add-on that lets you share any photo from any web page directly from within Firefox.

Twitter Toolbar: Another Mozilla Firefox add-on. Publish from the Twitter Toolbar without leaving the page you are on.

Power Twitter (http://power-twitter.me/): Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Greasemonkey add-on. Adds features to the Twitter Web interface including: inline YouTube, Flickr, TwitPic, Google Maps, song.ly and all sorts of playable/viewable media; link expansion (from URL shortened versions by bit.ly or TinyURL to actual URL); Facebook status updates; @mentions of friends on profile pages.

There are hundreds of other apps, ranging from games and advertising to things you never knew Twitter could actually do. To see a full list go here: http://twitter.pbworks.com/w/page/1779726/Apps

Remember to check your privacy settings on your tweets, especially if it’s about some hot piece you’ve been coveting, because they will appear in online searches of your (twitter) name – and will stay there even if you delete your account. - Sunday Tribune