As MakeUseOf’s Twitter manager, and a somewhat active user on Twitter myself, I’m always on the lookout for good Twitter tools. These include great clients, insightful analytics tools, interesting Web apps, and cool Twitter mashups.

In my everlasting search, I've already found several ways to track Twitter analytics, some useful Twitter backup tools, at least one great Twitter client, and even a Twitter chat app for personal Twitter conversations, to name a few. But so far, my Twitter finds were pretty segmented. It’s either a client, a tracking tool, a backup tool, or something else. That is, until I found Twitonomy.

Twitonomy is every Twitter lover’s wet dream - a powerful analytics tool with backup capabilities that can also serve as a basic client if you wish. How much does this wonder cost, you ask? Nothing. Twitonomy is currently in beta, and is completely free. All you have to do is try it out, and if you want to be nice, provide the developers with some feedback.

Twitonomy In A Nutshell

twitonomy review

Before I show you everything Twitonomy can do, it’s important to understand what you’re getting into. Twitonomy is a powerful tool that not only lets you analyze your own account, but any other Twitter account you wish (unless it’s private, of course). You start by signing in with your own Twitter account, but you can later specify any user you wish to analyze.

twitonomy twitter

Your Twitonomy account is divided into several tabs: your Dashboard, Profile, Mentions & RTs, Followers, Following and Lists. The names of the tabs speak for themselves, but I’ll show you just a glimpse of everything you can get out of Twitonomy.

Your Dashboard

Your dashboard is the closest you’ll get to a Twitter client with Twitonomy. By default, the dashboard includes your Twitter stream, and you can add any user, list or Twitter search. The dashboard is flexible, and you can drag items around to arrange them in any which way you want.

twitonomy twitter

When viewing your streams, you can reply, retweet, quote or favorite any tweet, with all actions done through twitter.com. For example, to reply to a tweet from Twitonomy, hit reply, and a new Twitter window will open. So you see, Twitonomy is only half a client, but it’s nice to have these capabilities in your dashboard. You can also tweet whatever you want from the top bar.

twitonomy twitter

Your Profile

The profile tab is probably the most useful one of them all. This is where you’ll find lots of useful analytics regarding your tweets, followers, people you follow, and more. This is also the data you can get for any Twitter user out there.

twitonomy

I could not include a screenshot of all the charts and data available had I wanted to, so you’ll have to trust me on this. There are many of them. The only downside is you can’t change the time range of these analytics. Twitonomy displays your last 800 tweets, if you have that much, and there’s no way to look at things like the last week, the last month, etc.

twitonomy

From the profile, you can also download an Excel file with your last 800 tweets, save some charts as images and tweet about others. The Excel file is especially cool, as it includes information such as which client you tweeted from, was it a retweet, and more.

twitonomy

Mentions, RTs, Followers, Following

There’s much to explore in these remaining tabs, but in a nutshell, this is where you’ll find a detailed analysis of your mentions (how many mentions do you get, who mentions you the most, who are they, etc.), which of your tweets got retweeted and by whom, and a stream of all your mentions.

twitonomy-7

When looking at your followers and people you follow you’ll find a detailed table of these users, which you can easily sort according to how much they tweet, how many followers they have, the time of their last tweet, and more. This is a great way to find influential users who follow you, or find inactive users you follow.  When you click on a username, you’ll automatically be taken to an analysis of that user, where you’ll also be able to follow or unfollow.

twitonomy-8

There’s also a list manager included, where you can add or remove users from your lists, decide which is displayed on your dashboard, etc.

Mentions On A Map!

While this is somewhat a gimmick, it’s an exceedingly cool one. From your Dashboard or Mention tab, choose to “Visualize your mentions on a map”. This takes you to a world map, where you can watch as your mentions start to fill it with pins. On the right side you’ll see location names appearing one by one, as a pin drops at that same location on the map. It’s a joy to just sit and watch this, amazed at how small the world seems when looking at it through Twitter.

twitonomy review

Bottom Line

Twitonomy is one of the best, most powerful Twitter tools I’ve encountered recently. It’s fairly simple, it’s intuitive, and most important, it’s fun to use. Whether you’re curious about your own Twitter action or want to see some data about others, Twitonomy is worth a serious spin.

Keep in mind that the app is in beta, so if you encounter any bugs, don’t curse and get angry, simply let the developers know!