I’d never claim to be a Twitter expert (I’ve only got 158 followers). But I am using Twitter a lot these days to connect with friends and colleagues, and stay abreast of industry trends.
Here are a few Twitter utilities that I’ve found useful:
Most Twitterers use a URL shortening service like TinyURL when sharing Web addresses. tr.im creates short URLs and provides useful statistics on who is clicking on those links. It even has built-in tools that allow you to shorten a URL and tweet it at the same time.
Run by the same people that run tr.im, pic.im gives you a place to store an image you want to share via Twitter, along with a compact URL to access that picture.
Twitter’s 140 character limit is unforgiving. txtb.in gives verbose Twitter users a way to cheat the system. If your comments run long, type them into txtb.in, grab the compact URL the service provides, and tweet the results. txtb.in is essentially a way to create a disposable Web page that holds your text, along with a Twitter-friendly URL the access the page.
Lots of people use various social media tools to update their Twitter and Facebook status at the same time. But what about those times when your tweet makes no sense to your Facebook friends — like when you tweet @ replies? With this Facebook app, your Twitter updates are copied to Facebook only when you add the hashtag #fb. Very simple. Very handy.