Twitter from the desktop

Jessica Dolcourt, Senior Associate Editor September 29, 2009

What's the best way to avoid the infamous "fail whale" you see when Twitter.com is down? Simple: send tweets from your desktop. Desktop Twitter apps sometimes succeed when Twitter fails. They are also typically sleek-looking applications that run on Adobe's AIR platform, which means they're compatible with Windows and Mac computers. (We link to the Windows version here, which will also work for Macs if you have Adobe AIR installed).

Twhirl is the veteran of the bunch, with TweetDeck beta and Seesmic Desktop close behind. Seesmic's ownership of Twhirl makes the two apps' core features similar, but there are enough differences to attract different user sets. Nomee places the least emphasis on Twitter, allowing replies and retweets from its social aggregation newsfeed. Nomee's people-focused take on social news isn't for everyone, but it's worth reading up on to see if it's for you. Finally, there's Digsby IM (Windows only), which has recently bulked up Twitter features for its chat app. Unlike Nomee, Digsby envisions Twitter (and Facebook) more as means of communication than as news data sources.