14 DAY TRIAL // A new service called Tweetree aims to offer a solution for a common problem most people using Twitter to keep informed had: the normal Twitter stream would only contain a title or short description for a story but the users had to leave the site to follow up on that story.
People rely on RSS feeds to keep up with news, current events and generally to stay informed. However, a new trend has taken over lately as the social networking website has started to replace RSS feeds for some. Twitter's real-time response means that popular stories spread through Twitter first before most RSS feeds are updated. All the social elements added to the appeal as users tend to trust stories coming from other people they know.
But because of Twitter's limitation to 140 characters the tweets couldn't provide all the necessary information by themselves. Tweetree aims to bring the best of both worlds, speed and content, by embedding actual RSS feeds related to the story inside the normal Twitter stream. The articles appear in a panel below the normal Twitter post and longer ones can be scrolled inside the frame.
There are a couple of concerns about this implementation but they have to do with how RSS feeds work. Many sites only send a snippet of the article in the feed so you'll still have to access the link for the whole story, defeating the whole purpose. Still, you may be able to get a general idea from just the snippet and decide you're not interested. The other problem is that most RSS feeds are quite slow and can take up to several hours to reach users. This means that for breaking news there will be no feed to get the information from.
The site offers an interface very similar to the Twitter site and it even uses the background you selected on the main site. Though there are still some problems, the idea behind Tweetree has its merits and should prove useful for many.