Twitter Desktop Clients: My Current Pick and a Few Others

I've mentioned before that I use Digsby for my IM, email, and some social networking updates. One of those was Twitter. But when Digsby recently updated Twitter functionality, the relatively low RAM on my laptop couldn't keep up and slowed Digsby's Twitter response time to a snail's pace. It was then that I had to consider turning to one of several Twitter desktop clients I'd heard of. There are quite a few of them out there; some are very popular, some are almost well-guarded secrets. And most of them are available for the common Windows, Mac, and Linux Operating Systems.

After some consideration and my common practice of reading reviews, watching how-to videos on YouTube, etc...I chose Twhirl. This Twitter desktop client is run by the folks at Seesmic, who gave us Seesmic Desktop. It installs quickly and cleanly, even if it finds that you don't already have Adobe Air installed on your computer (a required installation) and has to include this. Twhirl is a great proprietary Twitter desktop client; it's easy on the RAM, has an intuitive user interface, and lets you run more than one Twitter account if you so desire. Twhirl does let you tweak your settings for updates, languages, and appearance so you can customize it to your liking. If you want to check it out, here's the Twhirl main page.

For a desktop client that does more than just Twitter, consider TweetDeck. I have not actually used this one yet, just because all my other updates come to me via Digsby, but I've watched several demos of TweetDeck, and I'm very tempted to give it a try. TweetDeck will run Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace updates, conversations, and other interactive functions in a multi-column user interface. Like Twhirl, it needs you to have Adobe Air installed, but the information I've gathered shows that installation is snappy. The main attraction of TweetDeck is those columns and the latitude it gives you to customize them. Of course, the settings and appearance are not left out of the personalization loop either. TweetDeck is still in Beta, but all reports are that it's running more like a final release. If you haven't already, I suggest you head over to TweetDeck for an eyeful.

If you want to check out a few other Twitter desktop clients, all of which will require Adobe Air as a platform, here you go...knock yourself out:
Seesmic (desktop, web browser, or iPhone)
Spaz (for mobile or desktop)
DestroyTwitter (still in Beta)