In no particular order, what follows are 14 of the best Twitter tools and resources on the web!

Just Tweet It – service described as providing Twitter users the ability to “find other Twitter users like you!” Just Tweet It is a “Tweeter Directory” and allows you to add yourself to directories based upon interests that consist of groups of like-minded Twitter users.  In addition, you can list yourself into relevant directories so that people will be able to discover you!

Mr. Tweet – service described as “your personal networking assistant/agent [that] helps you expand your network easily.”  Mr. Tweet aims to provide this service in 3 ways: by getting you relevant followers, helping you discover great people relevant to your current needs, and improve your Twitter usage via useful statistics.  To start, you simply follow @MrTweet

Twitturly – service “for tracking what URLs people are talking about as they talk about them on Twitter”.  Twitturly lists the top links as well as the active tweets that posted the link and is a good tool for discovering what is hot on Twitter.

Favrd – a service that displays the recent highly favorited Tweets.  It lists the tweet that has been favorited as well as a look into the Twitter users who chose to favorite the tweet.

Tweet Later – “productivity tools for busy Tweeple”, Tweet Later allows you to set up alerts and track keywords in the public Twitter stream, schedule tweets, send automatic thank you notes, manage multiple Twitter accounts and more.

TweetSum -  a tool aimed to help you investigate potential connections.  When somebody new follows you, you can use TweetSum’s tools help you decide whether this person is somebody you should follow back or not.

Twellow – “a service to help Twitter users find people to follow.  Twellow categorizes and organizes Twitter into hundreds of niches to make your searching easier.”  Twellow is a search engine for searching Twitter bios, names, and locations.

Twitterholic – a service that provides Top Twitter user rankings and stats.  More than anything, this service is amusing and provides you with interesting data.

TwitPic – a tool that “lets you share photos on Twitter”.  It is heavily used and many Twitter clients have built-in support for it already.

Twapps – “archiving the best Twitter apps”.  A useful service for those Twitter users looking for new and/or unique Twitter applications.

Twittown – an alternative to, and perhaps better than, Twapps.  Twittown is “The Apps and Widgets Community and Forums” and serves as a great resource for discovering new Twitter Apps and Widgets.

Less Friends – simply put, a tool that provides an answer to the question: “Do the people you follow on Twitter, follow you?”  This tool can be very useful for making sure you do not accumulate to many people on your Following list.  An alternative to less friends is FriendsOrFollow.com

Twemes – a service that is “particularly useful for keeping up on the real-time activities associated with a live event”.  Twemes follows tweets that have embedded tags that start with a hashtag (#).

Top Twitter Clients from TwitStat – Provides live data on the top Twitter clients being used to manage Twitter accounts.  Very useful tool for discovering powerful Twitter clients.

Now comes word that Network Solutions is resorting to scamming people. Site’s like Network Solutions have a tool on their page that allows people to look for available websites to register. Now whenever anybody uses this tool on their site, Network Solutions will do more than report back to you whether the site is available or not. If it’s available, Network Solutions will register the domain automatically. In other words, they will say “Hey, yeah it’s available, and the only way you’re going to get it is if you buy it from me.”

Stay away from Network Solutions. You do not want to have to pay $35 for what you can get for $8 or less from other sites that provide the exact same thing! Shame on you, Network Solutions. Shame on you…

Thanks goes to TechCrunch for the scoop

This is very easy. Scan the italic stuff if you have a good idea of what you’re doing. Otherwise, take your time and read it all and you’ll be good to go in no time

• Download and install uTorrent from http://www.utorrent.com – installing it is no different than any application.
• Next, Search for files (torrents) to download with uTorrent @ http://www.btjunkie.org or if all else fails @ http://thepiratebay.org
• When you find what file you want @
  • btjunkie: click the ‘down arrow icon’ next to what you want to download.
  • the pirate bay, click the ‘green double-arrow pointing down’
• It will ask you if you want to open or save the file. Choose to open it with the application “utorrent.exe”
• Focus on the uTorrent window. You should see a list of all the files in the download. Choose what files you want and click “OK”
• Double-check that it is now downloading in uTorrent.
• By default, the uTorrent window can be accessed any time by double-clicking the ‘green “u” icon right next to where your computer’s time is displayed

Tips for maximizing uTorrent:

• In uTorrent menu, click ‘Options’ -> Click ‘Test if port is forwarded properly button’
• Your browser will pop-up and tell you if everything is okay.
• If there is an error, it is usually associated with the router. Google how to become DMZ of your router (or open all ports). If you are not in control of your router, contact whoever the hell is and demand results.

Thanks to Mashable for the scoop. For more information check out the Intego Security alert.

Official Statement:

“MySpace, the world’s largest social network, and Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:
GOOG) today announced that they are joining forces to launch
OpenSocial— a set of common APIs for building social applications
across the web. The partnership spearheads an initiative to standardize
and simplify the development of social applications. Today’s
announcement underscores MySpace’s commitment to supporting standards
that foster innovation in an increasingly social Web.”

They are not the only founding partners in this. Others include: Friendster, hi5, Hyves, Ning, LinkedIn, imeem, Engage.com, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING. Six Apart also owns Typepad, LiveJournal, MovableType, and Vox.

So what happens to Facebook? Will they join MySpace? Will the unholy Facebook/Microsoft alliance do battle with Googe/MySpace?

“Build a virtual apartment and put it on your website. Work with friends to make a huge MMORPG. Share your puzzle game with friends. We have a vision: to let you build anything, and play everything, from anywhere. Eventually, anyway. We have to finish first.”

Another description on their site states:

“So – does it work like the Web? Well, look at it this way: MetaMarkup is HTML. Clients are like browsers. The server is like Apache. The scripting is like CGI. The modules and stylesheets are like CSS and stylesheets. And Metaplace.com is like the Google/Yahoo/YouTube that sits on top of it all.”

Still vague in its description, here is other interesting information from Metaplace’s site:

• The core of Metaplace is MetaMarkup; a markup language designed to serve as a game equivalent to HTML. MetaMarkup parses very fast and can be translated back and forth to XML.

• Since MetaMarkup is an open standard, anyone can write a client for it. It is possible for somebody to make a text-only client, for example.

• Servers will be concerned with little more than 3d space, pathfinding, terrain, collision, physics, and webservices.

• There will be a “Create World Wizard” that will use stylesheets and modules to help people get started.

• MetaScript is an event-driven environment with four main components: templates, commands, triggers, and scripts.

• Templates are meta-data that define types of game objects

• Commands define entry points into the system from users and NPCs

• Triggers define events that occur within the system

• Scripts define handlers for commands and triggers

• The scripting environment uses the programming language Lua.

Still vague in nature, Metaplace sounds very interesting. They promise that using the platform will be free and that only users who have made very popular worlds will incur any hosting costs. Speaking of costs, they also promise to deliver users tools to monetize their creation!

Metaplace

Hulu’s Site

You can use the application however you want or use any of the site’s existing templates. The templates are visual setups created with the application. Examples of the templates include “From a different angle”, “Thinking actively in a social context”, “Reverse planning”, and “Facts or opinions”. I encourage anybody who likes to map out thoughts or projects to check it out.

Exploratree