I'm really starting to get into the Twitter thing (gee, that was quicker than I thought it would be...lol) but have a question. All I know to do is go to the Twitter website and work/view from there (I don't have Twitter set up on my phone yet). I see that there are a plethora of widgets you can add. I see one that I definitely plan on adding to my Macbook dashboard when I get home but I'm looking for something to add to my PC desktop. It looks like the widgets I'm thinking of will let you monitor and send tweets directly from your desktop without having to keep the main site up. Does anyone use a widget like this and, if so, which one(s) do you like best?

I use twitterdeck for mine. It lets you group folks you follow into groups and also keeps searches up for you.

I still haven't gotten the Twitter thing, I'm afraid. I tend to be wordy and Twitter just doesn't give you that option from what I've seen!

It does take some time to learn to be short, sweet and to the point. Let's just say that no one has ever accused me of being shortwinded *laughs*. Still, I do love twitter.

Tweetdeck or Seismic Desktop are two big ones that people like to use. Tweetdeck has several good features but IMO tends to use quite a bit of memory and bandwidth (unless you turn off the automatic update option.)

There are also gadgets you can add and use directly from Firefox or Google. One is Twitterfox and I'm sure a quick search on google will help you find their gadget.

Here is a fairly helpful post on 27 top Twitter applications and here is a post from Mashable that compares 19 different Twitter desktop applications including the two that I mentioned above.

I have been a hardcore Tweetdeck fan, and as much as I like Seesmic Desktop I will be sticking with Tweetdeck because of it's 12seconds.tv integration, which for me is really nice.

Depending on what type of cell phone you have, there are some great twitter applications for that as well (much nicer than using the Twitter mobile page).

Also, don't forget to add a twitter widget to your personal/work website so others can see your latest tweets! You can find those widgets at the bottom of the twitter page on a little link named something like "gadgets or widgets" or something (I'd post a link but my day job blocks the twitter site)

You can link your facebook and twitter page together, but be careful - every tweet updates your facebook status which in some cases if your a heavy twitter user (like i am), it can be very annoying to your facebook friends.

I'm just jumping into twitter and I'm using Hootsuite. (I've kept it separate from Facebook so far!) I like the interface so far, but I'm going to look into Tweetdeck & Seesmic after seeing you comments here! Great question.

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Liz
Blue Canary Design & Virtual Assistance

Hootsuite is very nice!
Actually, that's probably one of the most robust twitter clients out there! Tweetdeck and Seesmic desktop don't offer as much "functionality" as Hootsuite but they are very nice desktop clients if you aren't managing multiple accounts (Seesmic does multiple accounts) and don't need all of the feedback about twitter accounts.

I would put Hootsuite up on the "expert" twitter user reccomendation and the others at the beginner/intermediate level.

I can't remember if Hootsuite offers it or not, but the other 2 offer group options where you can create custom groups of your users (I have one for locals only, virtual assistants and then family) so I can reference these groups individually and not have to dig through 2000 followers worth of tweets.

Sorry, i'm very social media type-a so I can go on and on about twitter...