Send and Receive Tweets via IM Clients

TweetSwitch has come up with a nice idea in re-routing and re-transmitting tweets to the user's desktop IM client. When direct access to Twitter is blocked or unavailable, the startup's newly launched service will help users send and receive status updates through a simple IM chat window.

Currently in alpha testing, the service seems to work fine with five clients, AIM, ICQ, gTalk, Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger, and plans to extend the service to Skype and email updates.

As a downside the service failed to offer any response (receiving from TweetSwitch) when tried on Yahoo's web-based IM interface. It sent updates for us, but didn't print any kind of feedback back for our commands. On gTalk's web interface (chat window on Gmail inbox page) the service worked as it supposed to, sending and receiving tweets.

Nevertheless, the service has successfully offered another option to Twitter-holics, already being considered one of the best uses for the Twitter API out there. Let's take a closer look at their service and analyze the screenshots taken by our tester:



After signing in using Twitter, he is redirected to an interface where he can add IM usernames and arrange them in the order in which he would like to receive updates. If though one IM service message fails to be sent (or is offline), the TweetSwitch servers will move to the next one on the priority list. These lists can be set up for direct messages (DM), regular tweets and mentions.

Instructions and short commands are provided for the user to start, pause and send / list, retweet, send Dms. To see them consult the screenshots, type help in the TweetSwitch conversation window or check out the FAQ page on TweetSwitch.

The TweetSwitch homepage is here.

Download Yahoo Messenger from Softpedia at this link.
Download ICQ from Softpedia at this link.
Download Google Talk from Softpedia at this link.
Download AIM from Softpedia at this link.
Download Live Messenger from Softpedia at this link.

Note: The IM ids used in these tests are fake and were set up only for test purposes.