Third-party Twitter

Aaron White, co-founder of the third-party app Proxlet (which was one of the apps Twitter suspended), says in an email interview, “The diversity of the third-party ecosystem certainly contributed to Twitter’s fast rate of growth, considering how long it took them to launch an official iPhone client!”

According to Paris-based analyst group Semiocast, the social network had 517 million accounts as of July. That is a lot of eyeballs, and Twitter has begun to try and market to advertisers with expandable tweets (or a short blog with pictures and videos) and sponsored accounts under #Discover. As any regular user knows, there are two basic ways to access Twitter—you can either use your browser or an app. Apps range from the official Twitter application to custom applications that can use the features of the social network and give you a different experience.

Since the new official app can also serve ads, users might want a third-party experience instead, and there are a number of different apps to choose from there.

Monika Katkute, ideator and project lead at Lemon Labs, which created the Hashtag App for the platform in May, hopes that Twitter will remain an open platform for all developers. “If a third-party app is making tweets available in a more attractive and usable format, Twitter shouldn’t have an objection to that,” she says.

Like to try different flavours of tweets? Then try some of these innovative, out-of-the-box apps for a different take on Twitter and support the third-party ecosystem that has made Twitter what it is:

Is your timeline flooded with inane tweets? Slices is a free third-party application which divides your stream into categorized information. Launched in August, Slices lets you “browse” your timeline. The app does three important things: First, it automatically divides your Twitter stream into neat categories like technology, celebrity, etc.. Second, it suggests new people to follow through its Explore tab, where it divides users by categories like News, Local, Celebs, Humour, Music, Tech and Science, etc. Finally, it lets you choose from live events and trending topics from around the world or locally, in a simple interface which is actually quite addictive to use.

With more than five million downloads on Google Play since its launch in October 2010, TweetCaster is the No. 1 app for Twitter on Android. It offers basic Twitter functions like timeline, compose, mentions, Direct Messages, favourites and lists. What sets it apart from even the official Twitter app is its search mechanism, called Search Party. It allows you to search not only your own timeline, but also someone else’s timeline, mention or favourites. It even allows you to search for tweets near your location.

This one’s meant for those who love to eavesdrop on conversations. Missed out on what your friends were chatting through tweets? Simply type in both their Twitter IDs on the Tweets Between website and see what their most recent conversation was all about. Launched in February, the app is quite addictive.

Created by Japanese developer Tetsuya Aoyama, this lightweight Twitter app gives you great filtering tools and basic Twitter app functions. The interface is clean, without too many buttons, icons and menus. Additionally the app has features like colour codes for lists or individual users so you never miss tweets from those important to you. It mutes overzealous tweeting individuals quite well too. The app is relatively new, having launched in May, but it comes with a lot of polish. It even has a built-in image viewer that supports a lot of image-hosting services—Flickr, yfrog, Twitpic, Posterous, etc.