The Best Twitter Client For MacOSX: Nambu

The latest version of Tweetdeck and the recent announcement of Seemic Desktop, led to a series of blog posts trying to figure out what client is better between these two.

I’ve been using many different Twitter clients on my Mac and a couple of days ago I came across a very interesting client that just became my favorite: Nambu. I like both Tweetdeck and Thwirl (now Seesmic Desktop) but being both AIR apps, they consume a lot of resources on my Macbook and with “only” 2GB of RAM I have to avoid them.

For this reason I tried other alternatives, such as Alert Thingy (always AIR, though) and more recently Eventbox (native app). Eventbox is very nice and it provides a lot of very interesting features, such as Facebook and Google reader integration. Eventbox was definitely my first choice until I discovered Nambu.

Here are the main features that make Nambu an awesome and must have Twitter client for any Mac and Twitter user.

Manage multiple Twitter accounts

Nambu lets you manage multiple Twitter accounts and switching from one to another is really a joke.

Create groups

You can create different groups for each account and quickly move users to those groups. You can also open an overview of your followers and following.

Create and monitor multiple searches

You just insert a string in the search box and it will create a new column/search view that is automatically updated as soon as new entries arrive.

View user profiles and other info

You can get an overview of the user profile or open a new window with detailed info about that user, including the latest posts, followers, following etc.

Multi column or single view

I personally prefer a single column with the ability to quickly change views, but if you like the Tweetdeck approach, the multi column is available.

Integrated URL shorterener with usage stats

Nambu integrates Tr.im as URL shortener. You just insert the link on the compose box and click on the appropriate icon and the url get shortened immediately. You can also get quick stats about the clicks on those links from within the client or go to Tr.im and see aggregated stats about those links.

Integrated image web storage with “views” stats

Nambu integrates Pic.im to store your images on the web and it also provides stats about the number of views your images get.

Create filters

For any view/column you can filter the content you are currently viewing.

Realtime translations

You can just click on “Translate” from the tweet’s contextual menu and you get a tranlation in your native language. Not very accurate (as usual with services like this) but good in most situations.

View a summary of “links” you sent or received

I find this option very useful. It basically extracts the links included in the tweets you send or receive and shows them in a single view. Cool! If they are shortened, it automatically translates them (most URL shorteners are supported)

View trends (current / today / this week)

What’s hot on Twitter? You can see trends very easily and filter them by now, today or this week.

Support for Identi.ca, Ping,fm and Friendfeed

Twitter is not the only service available. Identi.ca, Ping.fm and Friendfeed are supported, too, despite the last one has been disabled in the latest beta, maybe because of the latest updates affecting Friendfeed these days.

In conclusion, if you want an alternative, lightweight (why should you use an AIR app when native apps are much better???), powerful and fast Twitter client, Nambu is for you. Mac only and no support for Facebook yet, but it’s definitely worth a try. From now on, my favorite.

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• Richard: Nambu: A Better Twitter Client Than Tweetdeck? (via ReadWriteWeb) (readwriteweb.com)
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• Twitter Expands and Improves Search With New ‘Discovery Engine’ (inquisitr.com)
• Blogs Who Covered the Twhirl Launch and How Your Social Software Desktop Looks Like (loiclemeur.com)

Tagged as: AlertThingy, facebook, friendfeed, identi.ca, luca filigheddu, nambu, Ping.fm, seesmic, TweetDeck, Twitter