Over the last 18 months or so (I joined Twitter in September 2007) I’ve tried a number of different client apps. TweetDeck, Twhirl, etc.

But the one I keep coming back to is OutTwit (from the fine folks at TechHit) . Its a simple little Outlook Add-in that sits up in your toolbar.

As per most apps it downloads your stream at a regular interval (eg 5 mins, but you can change this), and allows you to send Tweets. Nothing amazing so far. However, there’s a number of advantages to managing your Twitter addiction from within Outlook.

Here’s how I use it

First, I’ve set up a separate .pst file just for Twitter. In the .pst I’ve created folders for each month. For example, I have a folder called Twitter (April 2009). I’ve set OutTwit to put all my tweets in this folder.

I change it each month so that the folder doesn’t get too big, as it can slow down viewing. You can see this in the red square on the left in the screenshot below.

Up in the top right is the OutTwit toolbar. You simply type in there and press enter to tweet. Pretty normal behaviour I guess. If you are currently viewing a tweet, it pre-fills with the address of the person so that you can easily reply. If not simply clear it out and type your tweet.

Top 3 Reasons for using OutTwit

Here’s the three main reasons I use OutTwit.

1. Reducing distractions

I leave OutTwit running all the time and check in occasionally (eg every hour or two). Its easy to scan through the list of tweets and stay up to date. Admittedly this tends to encourage more of a ‘lurking’ behaviour, but hey, when you are working and don’t want to be distracted all the time, it is a good way to stay in the loop.

One thing I really like is that OutTwit doesn’t lose your history when you close down Outlook. They are saved away. Other clients seem to only keep your tweet stream in memory and lose it after closing down.

2. You can easily search

Following on from the first point: you can setup a simple Search folder in Outlook. I have one that pulls out anything it sees on certain keywords (eg my name, wife,  business or user group) so that I can be sure to reply if needed. This is especially good first thing in the morning. I can quick see what, if anything, was mentioned in my stream overnight that needs attention. This is easier and more flexible than just using the @mentions on the Twitter website. Of course, this only applies to people I’m following – for a general search you’d need to be use the Twitter Search. I note however that OutTwit has recently added support for searching and downloading tweets that match a keyword (even if you aren’t following the person).

The other benefit is that you can easily search back over past tweets. For example, I often remember someone mentioning a topic from a few weeks back. I’ll simply do an Outlook search of all my Twitter folders and it appears almost instantly.

3. You can analyze statistics.

Here’s an excerpt from a report I ran this morning. It tells me that over the past month I’ve collected 143,740 tweets. Of those 11,075 were from 3 people.  Thus, of the 670 odd people I follow, 3 of them are contributing approx 8% of the tweet stream. So I got to thinking about whether I really liked these 3 tweeters. Turned out I had a closer look and didn’t. They were more noise than signal. So I un-followed them. It’s about making the conversation more relevant for my tastes. There’s other reports including details of who I reply to the most, etc.

What’s missing?

There’s a few things I’d like to see in OutTwit, and perhaps they’ll add these in future versions:

1. Drill into people’s details

One of the things I like in TweetDeck is the ability to check the details of a person. This includes when they joined, follower details and a quick summary of recent tweets.

2. Other URL shorteners

OutTwit uses TinyURL for automatically shortening URLs. This is fine. However I’d like to see support for others added. In particular I’d like to see bit.ly integration. Over the coming months, being able to analyse click through rates on shortened URLs is going to become more and more important. bit.ly is going to be well placed in this regard – something that TinyURL doesn’t seem to be interested in currently.

3. Clicking out of the toolbar loses your tweet

You may start typing into the toolbar and then want to copy a link from your browser. Clicking out of the toolbar will lose your typing so far. This is particularly annoying. I’ve been on to the TechHit support team about this in the past but they assure me it is a limitation in the Outlook control they are using. I’m not so sure, but will take their word for it. In any case I hope they find a workaround for it. After a while you get used to this, and I now copy any links to the clipboard before I start my tweet.

4. Support for other networks

Other clients (eg Twhirl) integrate Facebook, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Twitpic and other social networks. So far OutTwit is only supporting Twitter. Actually this is fine by me, but I know it will probably work against the app in the longer term. [UPDATE: TechHit have FBLook for managing your Facebook status from within Outlook.]

Summary

Overall, I am big fan of OutTwit. I recommend it if you find yourself in Outlook most of the day.

My rating: 8/10

Download it for free from the OutTwit site. It’s only 520K in size and won’t impact your Outlook performance.

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