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David is a recent convert to Twitter, while Paul has been using it for some time.  Both agree that this red-hot social network, which has people transmitting their thoughts in 140-character increments, takes some getting used to. However the benefits are evident once you make Twitter part of your everyday routine.  Doctors have used Twitter to describe the intricacies of brain surgery and people are even writing books using messages contributed by their followers.

One of the most remarkable aspects of Twitter is the number of third-party applications that have sprung up, which range from useful services like polling utilities to one that lets you calculate how much time you waste tweeting.

Rather than trying to list these apps individually, here are two massive collections of Twitter applications:

100 Twitter Tools to Help You Achieve All Your Goals

Twitter Fan Wiki

For the record, both our hosts recommend TweetDeck to more efficiently manage the flood of messages. Paul likes Monitter to track hot topics. They also agree that search.twitter.com is a fast and efficient search engine that lets you save results as RSS feeds so you can keep track of what people are saying about you at your own convenience.

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