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So you’ve heard about this thing called Twitter. As much as you try, you can’t avoid it. It’s everywhere on the Web.
And as a developer, you’ve probably tried it out, got hooked and became an official Twitter addict. But there’s something missing—a feature you can’t find; a convenience you need; a functionality you wish your Twitter tool had.
If only you could find a tool that had the features of one application and the functionalities of another, right? Why not develop your own mashup tool? Despite the many Twitter tools online, there’s always room for another.
The trick is finding the right resources. Tech resources are the first part; finding the inspiration for your own tool is the second. To help, we’ve made up a collection of the most useful Twitter tutorials around and the most popular Twitter tools online.
Get inspired right here with a software development guide made especially for Twitter developers.
It takes some inspiration, a bit of know-how and a few handy related tutorials along the way, but you also need the basics. Make sure you have these Twitter library resources handy before you start.
JTwitter Java Library for working with the Twitter API
Keeping updated on friends, personal branding, passing on information—for whatever reason they’re made, Twitter accounts are a hot commodity, high in demand. However, the Twitter backgrounds and colours they provide users with can leave you with a LOT of room for improvement.
With the Twitter API handy and your favourite developer tools though, you can start developing tools that’ll personalize Twitter accounts even further than Twitter itself will let you.
These tools and tutorials on account creation and customization are just a starting point for what you can do with username tools, background customization tools, and icons, images and buttons.
If you’re looking to create more than one account, be warned: it can be difficult to come up with a user name that you like and that’s available. Make it easier for yourself and test out a few of these tools.
Domain Pigeon
Domain Pigeon is the number one place to find out which Twitter names are still up for grabs.
Tweetname
Tweetname lets you find Twitter domain names straight from the web or from your mobile phone. It’s a handy must have functionality with the popularity of mobile tech.
Tweexchange
This online tool is being branded as “the fatestest Twitter Username and Domain name search EVER!” Find out why.
Customization tools are definitely in high demand. A few of the best online resources and tools might give you some ideas on a background idea or a background generation tool. Find out what these sites have to offer you.
Twitpaper.com
Twitpaper.com is the site to check if you want contemporary and cool Twitter backgrounds.
Twitter Background Checker
To check if your Twitter background page works, a function like the one Twitter Background Checker has to offer is a great way to do so.
Twitter Backgrounds
Users love to customize. If you’re savvy with the graphics, check out a number of free Twitter backgrounds that everyone’s checking out.
Freetwitterdesigner.com
This tool lets users generate and customize their own Twitter background image. Try making a version of your own that’s just as easy to use.
Where would Twitter users be without the ability to click on a Twitter icon, button or image? Users love clean, easy to read and eye catching buttons. Try making yours just as cool as these ones.
TwitterImage.com
A person’s image on Twitter is important. At TwitterImage.com, you’ll find ways of making the right image for Twitter users.
31 Logos and Buttons For Twitter
Blog Marketing Web 2.0 et Techno may be a site completely in French, but you don’t need a translation to appreciate the style of these buttons and logos.
Twitter My Site
It’s a necessity to make it easy for people to follow you on Twitter. Do it with a customized button like the ones found here.
Take a look at these related tutorials. Here’s where you literally get to customize your own customization tools and ideas! They help you do exactly what they say they do.
Give A Personalized Touch to Your Twitter Page
Pixel Perfect Background Photoshop Template
Custom Twitter Backgrounds Tips for Better Readability
Build Your Own Social Home
GoDaddy Wants You to Go Twitter
Once a Twitter account is up, the fun begins. Usually the next thing needed is to add people to the account, but that first involves searching for people, aka Followers. This is one of the major reasons why Twitter search engines and directories are popular Twitter tools.
But with search engines and directories especially geared towards working with Twitter, users can find others conveniently. Here’s a variety of online searching tools that can get you started on building your network quickly.
These people finding tools are perhaps the best starting point as they can help tailor your following network immensely.
Twollow
This tool is cool because it lets users discover others with the same interests, and lets users automatically follow them based on keywords.
Whoshouldifollow
Users may find it tough to find people to follow. Whoshouldifollow makes it easier by making suggestions on interesting people to follow.
Twubble
Twubble “searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow”.
Mr. Tweet
Search tools can goes even so far as to help you recommend and find relevant Twitter followers.
Justtweetit
Justtweetit is popular because it makes finding other Twitter users as easy as choosing a category.
Twitseeker
This tool finds users based upon what Twitter users are talking about.
Yet, sometimes, as a Twitter user, you aren’t looking for an individual Twitter profile. Sometimes it’s a company profile you’re looking for. See how these Twitter directories can come in handy for you.
Twitterectory
A popular online directory of Twitter profiles.
Twello
The Yellow Pages of Twitter with all the same conveniences.
Twitterholic
This site is popular because it lets users find the top 1000 Twitter users and accounts easily—celebrities included.
WeFollow
The Twitter directory that lets you find popular Twitter profiles by tags.
Twibs
A Twitter directory designed for finding out which businesses are on Twitter.
Twit4.com
Twit4.com makes the list because it allows users to conveniently look up twitter accounts related to companies they’re interested in.
geofollow
Another Twitter directory, but location based to help users find other Tweeters in a certain geographical area.
Each search engine in this section comes with its own special feature that makes searching for people and things on Twitter easy. Get some inspiration for a search engine that you can add to your own Twitter projects and tools.
TwitterTroll.com
As the site says, “TwitterTroll.com is the coolest real-time Twitter search engine!”
Twitter Search
One of the most popular Twitter search engines that lets users see what’s happening on Twitter.”
Tweet Scan
Another great searching tool for Twitter. One special feature of TweeScan is that it notifies its users with email updates when their keywords come up on Twitter.
Twazzup
Its landing page may look simple and uneventful, but when a search word is typed in, Twazzup offers a lot to ensure users find what they need—popular links, real-time tweets, trendmakers and featured tweets.
With the above searching tools, you may already have some ideas on what to add to your own. These additional tutorials provide you with easy instructions on a small range of things you can do to your own Twitter search engine.
Search for People on Twitter
Searching through your Twitter archive
Using the Twitter Search API
21) Simple PHP Twitter Search Ready to use in your Web Projects
Once a Twitter account is up, the fun begins. Usually the next thing needed is to add people to the account, but that first involves searching for people, aka Followers. This is one of the major reasons why Twitter search engines and directories are popular Twitter tools.
But with search engines and directories especially geared towards working with Twitter, users can find others conveniently. Here’s a variety of online searching tools that can get you started on building your network quickly.
On the Web, it’s easy to be paranoid about the people in your immediate network. With dozens of followers, these tools can tell you which users to keep and which users to bypass. Trust us, it’s necessary.
TweepSearch
TweepSearch lets Twitter users search not only their followers’ location information, but also their bio.
TwitterSheep
This one lets users see a tag cloud from the bios of their Twitter followers.
The ReTweetability Index
Here’s a tool that measures a follower’s tweets—if they’re retweetable or not. A good tool for finding out the most influential users on Twitter.
Foller.me
According to the site, Foller.me “can provide you with the most detailed information about a specific Twitter user in the least amount of time!”
Adding a mass amount of followers isn’t as hard as it sounds. There are a few tools that can turn the lengthy and time consuming task into a few clicks. Take a look.
TweepMe
TweepMe is the easiest way to get new followers. How it works: “When a new member joins, every other member automatically follows the new member, and the new member follows them back.”
Twitterator
With this tool, users can follow a bunch of other Twitter users in one shot.
ifollowback (Beta)
iFollowBack.com is similar to the above tools—users agree to follow back other members of iFollowBack.com.
Twannabe (Beta)
For this tool, users can enter in their “Twitter hero” to find out who he’s following so they can follow the same people he is.
Do you still feel like something’s missing? A few handy tutorials related to adding Followers might just be what you’re looking for.
Tracking Twitter Traffic Trick
Automate linking to Twitter users
Twitter is all about up-to-the minute posts. It’s great when you have a ton of followers that want to hear what’s going on with you, but when you finally build up a network, you’re then faced with the problem of able to follow all the people you’ve added.
Don’t worry. You won’t have to chain yourself to your desktop in order to update over 1,000 or more people. The right combination of mass managing and mass following tools can have you checking in on your Twitter account less than 5 times a day (less than 20 if you’re a Twitter addict).
Here, we’ve got managing, tracking, monitoring and analyzing tools which can definitely make following 1,000 Twitter users manageable.
Users always need a way of managing their followers whether it be a single user or 500, a few tools can make it easy to manage a large account.
TwitterLocal
TwitterLocal is an example of what Adobe AIR can do for Twitter. The app lets users filter Tweets by location.
Twitter Groups
Users can get easily connected with their groups by using Twitter Groups.
GroupTweet
Once a user creates a Twitter group, he can broadcast quick messages and updates to them instantly.
Twitter100
Twitter 100 makes it a bit easy to handle a number of followers. See up to 100 followers at a glance.
Tweader
Tweader is a new way to get Twitter conversations into a readable view which users can manage. Just entering the tweet’s ID will do it.
Mattinator
Here’s a handy tool to get you tweeting on a number of accounts simultaneously.
TwitterFriends (Beta)
TwitterFriends helps a user decide which followers are best for his relevant follower network with a tag cloud showing their tweeting stats.
Part of the problem with following a large number of people is being able to track things—tweets, URLs, replies, conversations. . . . The list goes on. If this sounds familiar, then this category is just the thing for you.
Twitterless (Beta)
Twitterless does a number of things: posts to Twitter from the browser address bar, lets user set privacy and blocking options, and filters followers. It also keeps track of followers, a user’s follower history and why users lose or gain followers.
Tweetbeep
With Tweetbeep, users get to keep track of conversations that mention them with hourly updates thrown in.
TwitterCounter
Described as the Feedburner for Twitter, TwitterCounter shows you how many people are subscribed to you.
Tweetburner
This tool tracks the links users share on Twitter and Friendfeed.
Re-Tweetist
Re-Tweetist helps users discover popular trends, topics and people by tracking Retweets across Twitter.
Tracking Twitter
Here’s a real-time track listing of the top media, entertainment, and consumer product feeds currently being posted on Twitter.
Monitoring tools are must have in your Twitter toolbox. They make it easier for you to keep an eye on how things are going and in which direction they’re headed, whether it be the latest trends or your closest followers.
Tweethive
Tweethive easily creates channels to monitor Twitter across multiple accounts and even has the tools that’ll let users interact and manage your Twitter contacts.
Tweet-Rank
Tweet-Rank provides users with the relevance of each tweet by checking how much followers are won or lost with each tweet.
Twist
A site that depicts trends that are going on in Twitter.
Monitter
A Twitter monitor that lets you “monitter” Twitter for a set of keywords. It ultimately keeps watch on what people are saying.
TweetStats
TweetStats graphs a user’s Twitter Stats including Tweets per hour, Tweets per month, Tweet timeline, reply statistics.
Alltop
Here’s a great online aggregator news site that gives Twitter users a heads up on everything that’s going on in the Twitter world.
Twitter analyzing tools are another great way of staying on top of your account. But are you looking to analyze something specific in a certain way?Get some hints from the list below.
TwitterMass
Users looking to reach existing or new customers can turn to TwitterMass. They’ve got tools to spark a conversation and manage a Twitter user’s reputation.
Twitter Grader
Users can analyze how their own Twitter account is doing, while keeping updated on the power and authority of their profile.
Tweetwasters
Spending a lot of time on Twitter? Users can find out exactly how much with Tweetwasters.
Twendz
This tool hightlights Twitter threads that revolve around certain themes.
Twitalyzer
Twitalyzer evaluates a Twitter user’s relative influence, signal-to-noise ratio, generosity, clout, and other useful measures of success in social media.
Twinfluence
With Twinfluence users can measure the combined influence of their own profile and their followers.
When you need help, look to a few of these tutorials that can help point you in the right direction
Twitter Followers Counter Tutorial
Set and Retrieve Twitter user status
How to Make a Unique Website for your Twitter updates
Twitter: Send Message From a PHP page using Twitter API
Twitter CLI
A Desktop Twitter Client Built on AIR
How to Run Multiple Twitter Feeds on the same page
Getting your Twitter account in working order is important. Being able to publish and manage your Tweets online through RSS feeds, blogging, browser plug ins and with plain old usage tools is half the battle. The other half is trying to do it efficiently.
This category has the tools that can do just that.
The following Twitter essentials are just that—essential. They’re the tools you suddenly realize you need in the middle of your daily Twitter routine.
Twittermail
With Twittermail, it`s possible to post tweets directly to your Twitter account with an email address provided by Twittermail.
Socialtoo >
SocialToo can help users keep their follower lists in sync across different networks, while getting daily updates.
Tweet Backup
With the amount of tweeting going on, tweets can quickly accumulate. This tool can help back up a user’s favourite tweets.
Tweet O’Clock
Because Tweeters come from different time zones around the world, Tweet O’Clock cleverly works out the day and time when certain users will be using Twitter.
LinkBunch
Sharing a bunch of links on Twitter can be a bit tedious to the recipient. Check out this handy tool that takes a bunch of links and puts them together in one small “LinkBunch” link.
If you’ve got a WordPress blog, then you’re probably itching to get it to work with your Twitter account in some way and in a smooth way. Here are a few plug ins that might do just what you’re looking for.
WordTwit
This tool keeps a user’s Twitter contacts updated on his own blog by automatically pushing a published post to his Twitter account as a tweet.
Commentwitter Plugin
A tool like Commentwitter helps a blog’s commenting section by letting a user send his comments on a blog posting to Twitter, allowing other people to follow the comments as well.
Simple Twitter Link
Simple Twitter Link returns a URL to Twitter with a user’s post/page URL within it.
Twitt-Twoo
Twitt-Twoo is a nifty plugin that lets users update their Twitter status right from their blog’s sidebar.
TweetSuite
A Twitter-WordPress integration plugin that includes TweetBacks, a ReTweet-This buttons for each TweetBack, A digg-like Tweet-This Button, Automatic Tweeting of new posts and more.
And, no—we didn’t forget about the RSS tools. They’re an important part of keeping readers and yourself updated on the latest. The RSS to Twitter tools give you a few ideas on some Twitter-blogging action.
TweetBacks
Works like trackbacks for blogs, but lists Tweets about a specific post instead.
RSS2twitter (Beta)
An RSS to Twitter posting tool that lets users do just that–publish blogging content to Twitter directly.
Add Twitter RSS
Adds a user’s Twitter RSS link to their blog header. Simple, easy and essential.
http://twitterfeed.com/
With Twitter Feed, users can display the latest tweets from their accounts.
The best things about Firefox is its customizing plug ins. They’re created by developers exactly like yourself who saw a browser need, the opportunity to develop and did it. What’s your Firefox Twittering need?
Tw-autocompete 1.4
A “simple add-on for Firefox that adds autocomplete support for @-messages and d-messages to Twitter.com”.
Feedly
A cool tool that can put Twitter content into a fun start page on Firefox.
TwitterBar
TwitterBar conveniently lets users post to Twitter from the Firefox address bar.
TwitterFox
This simple extension notifies users of any updated tweets on Twitter with an icon on the status bar.
82) Twitzer
A definite must-have that lets users post more than the usual 140 characters on Twitter.
Here are a few tutorials for further publishing, managing and using Twitter with blogs, websites and webpages.
83) Develop a Twitter Landing Page
84) How To: Run Multiple Twitter Feeds on the Same Page
85) How to Display Your Twitter Status Message in a Speech Bubble in WordPress
How to Build a Maintainable Site Using CushyCMS and Twitter
Add Sign in with Twitter to your WordPress Comments Template in 3 Steps
How to Create an RSS-Enabled, Micro-Blog with Twitter
At last, one of the things you may dread is a network filled with users you no longer follow or relate to. This is normal. There’ll always be a time when you may want to get rid of some followers. Power users oftentimes change, remove or add followers on a regular basis.
We give you a small guide on how to go about.
Here’s where you start dealing with unwanted followers. These tools help you to first filter out the unwanted followers based upon tweets and updates.
Nest Unclutterer
The Nest Unclutterer should be a staple for all Twitter accounts as it helps users weed out the Tweeters you don’t want in your “nest”.
Twitoria
A tool that tells users which of their followers haven’t posted an update in a while.
Mycleenr
“The best way to clean your Twitter contact list”. It lets users sort out their friends according to their last tweets.
My Tweeple
Here’s an all-in AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, ICQ, and Google Talk IM client for your mobile phones.
Believe it or not, there are tools that can help you with annoying Followers. You can definitely find some inspiration for a similar functionality to add to your own Twitter project.
follow cost
The ability to find out how annoying Tweeters are before actually following them is definitely something all Tweeters should have.
Twalala
In addition to letting users control what they see in their Twitter stream, Twalala is also a handy little mute button for Twitter.
TwitBlocker
Here’s a greasemonkey script that lets users temporarily remove tweets from their timeline. Perfect for putting the chatty Tweeters on hold.
TwitterSnooze
As you can tell from its name, TwitterSnooze is the snooze button for Twitter.
Some of the mass unfollowing tools can help you get rid of a number of Followers in one click. Below are some of the best around.
TopFollowFriday.com
TopFollowFriday.com tells a user who endorses him, and who endorses whom!
Friend or Follow
Users can find out easily who’s following them back and who they’re not following back themselves. An absolute Twitter necessity for power accounts.
Tweepler
With its added “ignore” bucket feature, Tweepler makes it easy for you to stop following the Tweeters you don’t want to follow back.
Qwitter
Qwitter sends out an email notification to users when they lose a follower.
Twitter Karma
Essentially a pagination navigation tool that also contains a bulk unfollowing features.
Mutuality
This tool can perform mass follower tasks including mass unfollowing.
When in doubt about how to unfollow users properly with your own tools, try looking here for some handy tips on doing it right and doing it well.
How to Unfollow with Class
