With all the news about Chrome OS, netbooks, and the move to the cloud that seems to be going on all around us, desktop applications are beginning to feel passe.
That said, without TweetDeck what would you do? If you had only a browser and a hookup to the tubes, what would you use to tweet?
Take heart, TNW has done the work for you. Below, the best web-based Twitter clients.
Seesmic is the everywhere Twitter client. Mobile? It’s got that. Air application? Has that too. Often overlooked, is that Seesmic also has a killer web application for Twitter. No download needed.
Of course, you can login with Twitter, if you fear password theft, and then the delights begin. You are started off with a standard incoming tweets, and @ mention columns, and can with single clicks add in a stream of your updates (something that I love, given that I tweet a bit, I need to see what people are responding too), and your favorites.
Seesmic web also integrates lists, letting you open a new column for each list that you follow. I heartily recommend this list, if you get the time.
Seesmic also tracks trending topics, and with a single click you can add search columns for each trend. Seesmic is fast, accurate, full featured, and well designed. Even for the hardened TweetDeck user, such as myself, Seesmic web impresses.
Brizzly takes a radical approach to Twitter: one column. If you have become used to using a number of columns to keep things straight, get over it. Brizzly does a number of things very well, including treating DM’s like conversations, and automatically making images viewable, right in your stream.
If you were, or perhaps still are (there are 7), a heavy FriendFeed users, Brizzly is for you. It mimics a number of familiar FriendFeed elements, making the switch very simple.
Brizzly recently became open for general use, after an extensive beta period. It is growing like a weed, for a reason.
CoTweet is the industrial strength Twitter application, for the dead serious user. If you are managing a brand, or corporate account, CoTweet is for you.
Built into every tweet, the ability to change the time of posting. The ability to assign updates to account managers? It does that. Multiple accounts? Of course.
CoTweet is built for the corporation, and it shows. Can you use it a personal client? Sure. It is not designed for endless updating, you have to click “Post An Update” just to get a place to tweet. But, if you are mostly a listener or trend watcher, CoTweet can be very powerful.
If you are running a high volume corporate account with several managers, CoTweet is a godsend. For the average Twitter user, it is too much built for something else.
HootSuite, which is tied to the ow.ly shortener, is packed with powerful, simple to understand features. It integrates lists, Facebook, LinkedIn, multiple columns, tabbed groups of columns, tweet delaying, and built-in analytics if you are an ow.ly user.
HootSuite also has the “Hootlet,” which is a browser bookmarklet, which for the avid sharer will be a god-send. HootSuite also manages multiple accounts simply, and has a system (something akin to CoTweet), allowing different users to interact over various accounts. I have not tested this.
HootSuite is a top contender for me, if I was to move to the browser full-time.
TweetVisor is something of a lovely disaster. Do you know the effect of watching your slice of apple pie ooze into a blob with ice cream on top? Still tastes lovely. That is TweetVisor, the little app that could.
TweetVisor is a multi-column application that has a boatload of capabilities. Lists, saved searches, favorites, trending topic management, even the ability to create lists inside of TweetVisor.
All that and you get to pick what the application looks like, myself opting for the familiar TweetDeck feeling “Deck” theme. Tweetvisor also keeps a running tab of your follower/following and update counts at the top of the application, letting you track your success in, well, real-time.
TweetVisor does not feel as polished as the other applications, but it gets the job done in a major way. Some people are going to love it.
The Linux of Twitter apps. You start with, well, nothing, and build “channels” for the incoming streams that you want. If you are tired of catered solutions, this might be for you. Updating requires opening a box, making power-tweeting difficult. If you built your last computer and are running Ubuntu, this might be just the thing for you.
An incomplete version of Twitter, that lacks the standard features that we are all accustomed to. Twitter.com only has three things going for it: access to full following/followers lists, the horrible new retweet function, and the ability to leave it be.
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