Twitter tools will only lead to addiction

While I did hop on the Twitter bandwagon not all that long ago, Twitter remains a casual web toy. I’ve played with Twitter as a tool, connecting it to applications, services, and even a few games, but beyond that I don’t use it as anything more than a way to communicate with friends and what few people I’ve met through interests. I may write and pay attention to Twitter a lot, but I am not a hardcore Twitterer.

I know I’m not because I don’t use any of the recently released Twitter desktop clients, like Tweet Deck as Seesmic. I use Twhirl, which is a small, simple Twitter client that doesn’t come with many bells or whistles. But in an attempt to follow the web trends, I downloaded both Tweet Deck and Seesmic to see what all the fuss was about. It didn’t take long for me to find out that both of those clients and countless are way more tool that I ever need.

Those clients are built for those people scanning Twitter for topics and trends, not to simply communicate. If you want to find out whenever someone mentions “Microsoft,” those clients will do that for your wonderfully. They’ll log things, track things, chart things, links things…all sorts of stuff…stuff that I don’t even do. But alas it is tempting to see something like Tweet Deck and think, “this is awesome! It does everything,” without really knowing what it is you want to do in the first place.

I’m not sure how people have time to Twitter watch all day long, because that’s what will happen if you go with a Tweet Deck or other bloated Twitter tool. It’s so easy to type in a term and just sit back and watch the conversations flow. I came across TwitterFall.com and did a scan for “Tweet Deck” and “Seesmic” as a mere test, only to find myself sitting there and watching for 20 minutes. Bad.

Or maybe it’s jealousy because my job isn’t watching Twitter. With all the hype and hubbub about social media trending, before too long someone’s job will be nothing more than to watch Twitter, Facebook, and the rest and report on it. That’s it. And I don’t say that in “what an easy job,” type way because I think that job would be exhausting and tedious…although I’d do it for a paycheck in a heartbeat.

However, by Twitter watching the topics you enjoy you will quickly find that you’re not alone.