No iPhone? How To Effectively Use Twitter On Your Mobile Phone

With all of the iPhone buzz over the last few days, I thought I'd give some tips to those of you that don't have a 3GS in your future. I've been using a Sony Eriksson w810i to browse, check facebook, tweet, and generally browse the internet sucessfully for almost 3 years.  This post is for those who want to @reply on their mobile phone, but can't with m.twitter.com.

The easiest way to simply tweet from your phone is to set up twitter to accept text messages from your phone.  That allows you to send a text message to twitter that is posted to your Twitter timeline.  That's great, but you can't see what anyone else is saying without getting a deluge of text messages.

You may have used your mobile web browser to look at your Twitter account through the Twitter Mobile site at http://m.twitter.com.  That's a step forward, but it doesn't allow retweets, replies, direct messages, or anything cool without knowing the shortcuts and typing a bunch.

Want something better?

Here's how to use your mobile phone effectively with Twitter:

1. Signup for TwitPic

You have probably seen people posting pictures from twitpic.com.  It's easy and if you have MMS photo support on your phone (take that iPhone!) then you can take photos with your phone and auto-publish them to twitter.  Very cool.

Just remember to add a subject to your MMS or the tweet will have no text, just a link to your pic.

2. Download Opera Mini for your phone.

Not all phones support Opera Mini as it requires java support.  But if you can get it, you may actually enjoy (somewhat) looking for information on the web with your phone.  Try a demo of Opera Mini and see how cool it is.

You can zoom-in on regular web pages (not mobile versions) and it auto shrinks the content so it uses much less bandwidth.  That helps when you only have a MB of data transfer per month.

Another cool feature is that you can make it display in landscape mode for those times when you have some really big words on the page. :)

3. Get a real Twitter Mobile client.

There are a few good options for twitter clients.  My favorites are Slandr, Dabr, and Tweete.

Dabr.co.uk

My current #1 is Dabr.  I like seeing the avatar images and it's just a bit cleaner and uses less bandwidth than Slandr.

m.Slandr.net

Slandr was the first mobile twitter site I found, so it has a special place in my heart.  It have a unique feature that does a mini Shizzow location type feature.  Personally, I'd rather use Shizzow or something that is dedicated to that.

m.Tweete.net

This is a bit of a new one for me.  I like it because its REALLY small.  It rivals the Twitter Mobile page for simplicity, yet give the basic features I need.  Things like retweets, replies, direct messages, and favorites.

Notice how nice all of these look in Opera Mini?

So stop pouting about not getting an iPhone and pimp your mobile!

More mobile goodness:

Twitter Mobile Site Reviews - Wap Review

Google Maps For Your Phone - You have to get this.  It's saved me a few times.

Gmail For Your Phone - Must have if you are a gmail user.

Oh, and I'm getting an iPhone.  :P