Twitterspy is a site full of ajaxy goodness. It follows the live twitter stream and automatically updates the page every second or two. The stream runs between thirty seconds and a minute and half behind the live stream. New tweets pop up at the top of the page and the old ones fade slowly out at the bottom of the screen.

I am somewhat dubious that the site actually displays all live tweets. Each post appears about a second or so apart. I'm pretty sure that Twitter has more than 60 posts per minute. Posts that I've made don't seem to appear on the page. MicheleM (the developer) has started a Google Group discussion to solicit feedback on the project which sheds light on why this might occur. First, Andrew Badera surmises the public timeline only updates once every four minutes. Second, Nathan Rixham goes on to indicate that there is no easy way to poll often enough to capture all tweets as there are 300-400 tweets per minute running through the system.

This is a pretty neat proof of concept, but is limited in it's use. There are no settings that allow you to target an individual or your own stream. I would likely make use of it frequently if I could customize the output. So @michelem, any plans to make this a configurable tool? That would turn this from being a neat experiment to being a truly cool tool.

My good friend Beth Kanter has been a sponsor of Leng Sopharath for some time now. She has been helping raise money to send her to college. This year, using Twitter, she managed to raise the tuition in record time and more. Now Beth's target is to raise enough money that TWO kids can go to college. This is a life changing opportunity for a kid in Cambodia. I have donated a little and encourage you to do the same. Beth is using Chipin to raise the money. If you want to help, point your browser to Beth's Blog, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the Chipin badge.

Snitter is a tool built in Adobe AIR to send Tweets to your Twitter stream. It was created by a Canadian, Jonathon Snook, who wanted certain features in Twitter that didn't exist.

I've used Twitterific quite a bit, and there are issues with it I don't like. It is a little bit of a challenge to shut off--to quite out of the application you have to go into the application's configuration menu which strikes me as a little odd. With Snitter, you go to your regular menu and quit in a pretty standard way. Twitterific does a fine job of allowing you to post to Twitter--but it is only MacOS friendly. Snitter is available for Windows and MacOS.

What a curious thing the Democratic debate this afternoon ended up being. I was unable to watch them live, needing to be at work to earn a living, but found out via Len Edgerly on Twitter that baratunde was sending out live tweets covering the goings on. So, when I got home this evening, I followed the Twitter streams of baratunde and Len to get a sense of what happened.

Things have changed in the last three years. What tools do you think are going to pop up before the election that will continue to disrupt traditional media?

Wow, what a great little MacOS X desktop app! Twitterific sits on your desktop and allows you to easily follow tweets from your posse. Download is simple. You go to http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific and click on "Get It". Extract the package that downloads and click on the little blue bird in the resulting directory. Twitterific asks you for your username and password and logs right on. You see a series of thumbnails with your friend's avatar with the post.

It is a slick, simple, interface.

If you are a twitterholic, this is definitely an enabler.

If you are an OS X Tiger and Twitter user, try Twidget! It is a dashboard widget that allows you to post to Twitter without logging into the site.

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I popped over to Twitter a few minutes ago to do a little more exploration. I was going to set up my cell phone to handle sending and recieving messages to the service. I was greeted with no CSS.

I think I'll wait to navigate the site. However, this is an interesting illustration of HOW important layout/graphics are to usability. All the functionality of Twitter sits intact, but the page has become difficult to use because we can't see where the elements lie easily.

Twitter is a curious social networking site that is a cross between blogging and IMing. When you use instant message, you are typically sending a short note to one person who might respond. When you blog, you are transmitting to a larger audience and hopefully have well thought out ideas that are crafted with some care.

Twitter is neither a blog, nor IM. It is a strange hybrid of the two. After you sign up and log in, Twitter asks you to answer, "What are you doing?" People answer this question through out the day essentially documenting everything from the mundane to the exotic.