Twittelator – Guest Post – Damien Basile

Continuing the series of guest posts on Mobile applications for Twitter users, I am very fortunate to have Damien Basile contribute today. Not only is he a great contributor to Twitter but writes an extremely well thought through blog at TheCauseIsTheHabit.com If you haven’t already read it I would highly recommend that you do.

Damien Takes over

I have an iPhone and use Twitter heavily on the go. This being such, it’s extremely important for me to be able to do exactly what I want see what I want when I want it. This is what Twittelator Pro does for me.

I once used a different application (Twitterific) before I started interacting with more breadth and depth on Twitter. Twittelator Pro helps with this as it is a multifaceted highly customizable iPhone application that is most commonly and correctly called the mobile Tweetdeck.

It allows you to see up to 200 older posts- although the way the people in my stream chat I sometimes wish I could see up to 500 back. This “setback” has taught me to limit my noncurrent time on twitter, as I tend to “go down the rabbithole” when keeping up to date on peoples updates. Now when I’m not on, I’m not on and that’s all. If what I missed was that important someone will send it to me or it will come up again.

If you are a brand or a power user then this app is especially for you as you are able to track all mentions of your username whether or not you follow someone. This is especially useful not only when talking to those you don’t follow but seeing when someone retweets something you said or mentions you in conversation. This is HUGELY important if you are a company on twitter as many people outside of your network WILL talk about you. It is your job as a company to guide the conversation, as that is all you can do.

Another majorly useful feature is the ability to manage multiple accounts with this one application. In addition to Twitter there is also support for Identi.ca if you use that service. I would prefer it if I could view my items in a tabbed interface that way I can easily move back and forth instead of having to go through intermediary screens. All in all this is one of the best mobile Twitter applications.

Here’s a couple of useful tips that you may not know about Twittelator:

You can bookmark users to check their updates later. This comes in handy when your stream is moving too fast for you to catch all your valued user updates. The bookmark feature can also be used to follow someone’s updates without actually following them. This may come across as controversial but there may be some reason or another why you don’t want to follow someone, yet you want to hear what they have to say from time to time.

You can check out users favorites easily. This is an interesting insight into how people function as not everyone uses favorites the same. Saving compliments, knowledge and links (especially ones to visit later when you have time)- each user decides how they want to use it.

In addition to searching for your name or brand, Twittelator’s in-depth advanced search feature allows you to find anything. You can do a search for any, all or exact keywords that can include links or not. This is useful when you want to find information outside of your network or just find new twitterers that are talking about what you’re interested in.

Twittelator is also good at storing information when you are not. Trending topics, recent twitterers checked, and recent searches are all saved for later for easy viewing access. Both recent searches and twitterers can be easily edited for an interface that makes the most sense to you.

Another feature many may not know about is the reply chain. By holding down the “in reply to” small text underneath a tweet you can see the full scope of the conversation. This becomes useful when someone you are following says something interesting but you have no clue what it’s in reference to & would rather not ask them.

Some new features to the Twittelator upgrade is that when copying you have the option to copy tweet, retweet, or just copy URL. The addition of retweet is highly valuable considering the amount of amazing information I come across daily that I want to share. This shaves seconds off of every tweet which add up over time to gaining back minutes maybe hours.

Upon sending a tweet that has links in it, Twittelator now asks you if you want to shorten it to save characters. Yet again another time saver.

With all of these features this product has become a highly valued addition to my life. This is my preferred mobile Twitter application of choice. I suggest any serious Twitter user use Twittelator Pro for the most customized flexible experience.

Image via Wikipedia