Tweetdeck
The most popular Twitter client in the world, according to Compete.com.
Has a clean, web 2.0 look and the simplest installation in the world, thanks to Adobe AIR, also supports Facebook and many other sites. Perfect for the average Twitterer, but lacks the support of multiple accounts.

Twhirl
One of the most popular Twitter applications up-to-date. It is simple supports multiple accounts, searching for your replies, shortening URLs and much more. The only downturn it has is that you can’t view the complete profiles directly in the application, thus disallowing you to follow people you could want to follow through your friends’ profiles.

Splitweet
The application made exclusively for having multiple Twitter accounts. Has a nice, clean design. Although it’s for multiple accounts, it isn’t a device for an average spammer.

Qwitter
Qwitter is the simplest web-based Twitter application which notifies you via e-mail when someone stops following you. Easy to use and perfect if you’re worried about what impact your tweets can leave on your followers.

Monitter
Monitter allows you to dig through real-time trends on Twitter. It might come in handy for journalists, as Tweets are often long ahead of the traditional media.

Twitpic
Twitpic is an on-line picture sharing service for Twitter. Automatic posting via Twitpic is available in many Twitter desktop applications. Supports posting pictures with e-mails from your mobile phone.

Twitterholic
A webpage designed purely for Twitter statistics, namely, the count of your followers. For example, twitterholic.com shows that there currently are thirteen proud Twitters that have over a million followers. You can also check your ranking in the pretty clean page.

Twtpoll
Twtpoll.com offers the chance to create and manage polls to use through Twitter, Facebook and many other social media sites, a must have if you want to know what your audience thinks.

Topsy
Topsy is a fresh, Twitter powered search engine. It has a lot of potential, as it digs mostly through social media sites, thus providing only and only fresh content. If Topsy spreads out, we should likely get an answer from Google.

All the applications mentioned here is but a fraction of what the web is offering for fellow Twitters. There will be many other fresh and innovative applications, made exclusively for social media sites. In 2009, the web is starting to gain a form one could only dream about when the web first appeared in 1980s. User generated and user moderated content will leave a great scar on anyone in business, who doesn’t consider the demands and the tolerance of the public.

1. Work on your profile.
It’s the only thing that your potential followers can see. Customize it; make it beautiful, it’ll work and attract followers. At least if your profile is beautiful.

2. Participate in Twitter games/trends.
My profile recently got quite of an attention (read: followers) because I submitted some entries to #twitterfilms. Put yourself on the line with stuff like this. Once you have a load of followers, you may also start games yourself. It’ll get you even more followers.

3. Off-Twitter relations which drive traffic to your Twitter.
This should be the first on the list, but for some reason, it scares people away quite a lot. It isn’t hard to add a link to your Twitter at your e-mail and forum signatures, is it? People who have a load of followers weren’t made famous exclusively by Twitter.

4. Start a contest.
“God, this is overused”. Well yes, it is, but it’s also effective. There are a lot of things you can make contests about even without prize money or material prizes. You can offer links from your site, free e-books or exclusive content. Anything works, as long as it is valuable.

5. “Retweet, Retweet!”
Keep your eyes open for something funny, retweet it first by using the RT button. How does it help you? You’ll gain value in the eyes of the person you tweeted, and if you offer something valuable in the future, it’s more likely that the person that you retweeted will retweet your message too!

6. Be intelligent and open to discussions.
There isn’t anything much to add here, is there? That’s a crucial rule for gathering Twitter followers. Make your Twitter more about other people, only then you’ll get noticed yourself.

7. Follow people in your niche.
It’s a more targeted audience, it’s a smarter audience and audience that will listen more to what you say.

Twitter is mostly NOT about content. It’s about making other people feel evaluated by you, your tweets, and a great deal of the followers you’ll receive is from your online reputation. While you may get a lot of followers explicitly through Twitter, there will probably be a lot of problems in sustaining the growth of the numbers. Here is a zen of Twitter – Twitter is merely a reflection of the outside world, and your popularity on the outside world reflects the one on you’ll have on Twitter. It is, however possible to get some results by Twittering directly, but they won’t be as big as they ought to be.