TweetDig Review

Yet another Twitter interface, but awesome

• Review
• TweetDig

I'm not a massive fan of Twitter; I find the majority of tweets pointless, and sifting through the rubbish to find the worthwhile ones gets annoying after a while.

I'd almost given up, in fact, until I got into the beta of TweetDig. TweetDig is yet another Twitter interface, but yet it feels different. So different, in fact, I've given Twitter another go.

TweetDig is a simple Twitter interface, aiming to be the buffer between you and Twitter.

The Pros

Folders: you can place all your tweets into separate folders, making them easier to digest. This might not sound like much, but when paired with the next point, it means a lot.

Filters: these are amazing. Basically, you can set up filters to place certain Tweets in certain folders.

For instance, I have filters to put all the News accounts I follow (BreakingNews, WikiLeaks etc) into a folder (which I then invariably just mark as read anyway). I have folders set up so any Tweets that mention JavaScript or jQuery go into a folder; the same goes for PHP and CSS. I even have a folder called Ignore, where all the FourSquare checkins, conference/TV hashtags and Instagram photos go in to.

Cons

Bear in mind TweetDig is in beta and the points raised below might have been fixed by the time I post this. Or, on the other hand, there might be more bugs.

Duplicates: Tweets from a few hours to ago to last year reappear at random intervals in my timeline, confusing the hell out of me.

Overly general filters: it'd be nice if we had slightly more controls over the filters we create. For instance, I have a filter to collect all the Tweets that mention “Vita” (as in the PlayStation Vita). However, Tweets with the word “invitation” and “vitamin” also get collected.

I would love a system similar to the CSS3 syntax, ^= for starts with, $= for ends with, etc.

General buggyness: all minor nitpicks, but sometimes it says I have some unread Tweets, but when I click to view them it says I don't have any. Also, the overall site can be a little slow at times, but they are scaling up and trying to match the demand I guess. Favourites error every time I add one, and when typing out a tweet, there is no auto suggest for usernames.

Overall

I really like TweetDig, and if I hadn't started using it, I probably wouldn't still be on Twitter, or at least check it as much as I do now. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants more control over the Tweets they see, and if you can get past the teething problems, it's a great service.

Plus, if the past few weeks are anything to go by, they'll keep adding new features and it'll only get better!