Ever heard of Twitter? If you’re a blogger or somebody in tune with social media, you probably have. If you’re one of PCMech’s computer-focused readers, then your answer probably lies somewhere between “No” and “Yeah, but it sounds stupid as hell”.

Granted, Twitter will probably seem like a colossal waste of time to most users of the Internet. After all, something that is based on the question “What are you doing?” just BEGS for answers like “Sitting here having a pizza”. And, quite frankly, who needs to know?

But, I count myself as a user of Twitter. I’m not a die-hard user, but I do use it. My reasoning?

1. I’m a blogger, and most other bloggers seem to be on Twitter. So, it is good for networking.
2. It is a good way to make little mini announcements to my followers.
3. I can update it from anywhere from my cell phone.
4. Many informative and interesting conversations happen in the “Twittersphere”.

Out of the gate, you are going to be accessing Twitter either from the web, your cell phone or instant messenger. That’s fine for sending in your own “tweets”, but as you start to follow a lot of people, using Twitter’s site starts to suck hard. This is where a Twitter client comes in.

A Twitter client is just a program that you can run on your computer and allow you to interface with Twitter outside of the context of the web browser. Here is a list of 25 Twitter clients.

Windows

1. Twitterlicious.
2. Twitteroo
3. Twessenger. A Twitter add-in for Windows Live Messenger.
4. MadTwitter
5. Witty
6. Flotzam. A mash-up of Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Digg and blogs.
7. OutTwit. An Outlook add-in for Twitter.

Mac OS X

1. Twidget. A dashboard widget.
2. Moodswing. Updates Twitter (and Facebook, Jaiku, Tumblr, Yappd, iChat, Adium, Skype) from a hotkey.
3. Twitteromatic.
4. Twitterlex. A dashboard widget.
5. Twitterriffic

Linux

1. kTwitter. For KDE
2. gTwitter.
3. TwitBar. For Gnome users to post from the Deskbar.
4. Twitux. For the Gnome desktop.

Cross Platform

1. TwitKit. Integrates with Firefox.
2. Shareaholic. Post URL/webpage related tweets from within your browser.
3. Twitter Opera widget.
4. Tweetr
5. TwitterAir
6. Tweeter
7. Snitter. A great client built atop Adobe Air.
8. Twirl. My personal favorite. Also built atop Adobe Air.
9. Twibble.

So, there you have it. There are a lot of different, free Twitter clients to choose from out there. This list is by no means complete. I have just listed the ones that looked best to me.

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