A look back at top Twitter tools

Microblogging service-gone-viral, Twitter, bloomed from a hybrid of social networking and person blogging back in July 2006, and since then has blossomed into a true blue Internet phenomenon. Like many social networks, Twitter opened its platform up to third-party developers, allowing them to contribute home-made widgets and APIs for all the world to share.

Leena Rao once posted the top 20 Twitter tools on TechCrunch (say that five times fast). The master list, generated from monthly unique visitor data provided by Compete, ranks the top twenty Twitter tools that tantalize users' fingertips and brainwaves.

Here's a quick look at the top four... the features they boast and the numbers the January numbers they brought in:

Name: Twitpic
Rank: 1
Desciption: just over a year old, this photo-sharing widget allows users to post regular pictures of themselves... almost like a Facebook photo album meets a daily photo log.
Unique Visitors: 1,236,828

Name: Tweetdeck
Rank: 2
Description: Launched out of England last June, this Adobe Air desktop app that collects the dozens of Tweets one user might receive in an hour (or minute, depending on how many fellow Twitter folk you follow) and restructures them into "more manageable bite sized pieces..."
Unique Visitors: 285,864

Name: Digsby
Rank: 3
Description: Accumulates info from different online communication accounts including e-mail, IM and social networking profiles, accounts and syncs it up into a single desktop program.
Unique Visitors: 233,472

Name: Twitterfeed
Rank: 4
Description: Automatically generates Tweets based on a blog RSS feed
Unique Visitors: 149,812

And as for there rest of the list, these puppies are borrowed directly from Rao's post for your viewing pleasure:

Top 20 Twitter Clients (According To TwitStat)
Twitter Applications Monthly unique visits (Compete)

5. Titterfeed 149,812
6. Twitterholic - 147,164
7. Twhirl - 143,333
8. Twitturly - 88,793
9. Twtpoll - 74,154
10. Retweetist - 60,051
11. Tweepler - 51,304
12. Hellotxt - 45,754
13. Twitdom - 45,411
14. Tweetscan - 44,463
15. Tweetburner - 41,754
16. Tweetvisor - 31,621
17. Twittervision - 30,708
18. Twitterfall - 29,592
19. Monitter - 25,433
20. Twibs - 17,168

So there you have it. Are you tweaking your Twitter experience with these popular applications? If not, you might want to consider checking them out-- they could seriously enrich your online socialization.