Is there a way to use Twitter like an RSS reader and stay updated on what really matters? There are several. You can use Twitter lists to create your very own reading lists, you can use Twitter's new custom timelines on TweetDeck, or you can opt for an interesting third option: Tweetbits.

For Frequent Favoriters

Twitter's timeline can get cluttered, especially if you're interested in many things. Filtering your timeline is one way to go, but you still may not have time to read every tweet you're really interested in. This is were the "favorite" option can come in handy.

On Twitter, every tweet comes with a "favorite" button. Some people use it with abundance, some people ignore it completely. If you're anything like me, you don't often use the "favorite" option because it's not any easier to manage. You favorite a bunch of tweets to read later, and when you finally get to it, you're faced with a pile of jumbled tweets, some of which you're not even interested in any more.

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This is where Tweetbits can help you. If you often use the "favorite" button, or if you'd like to start using it, Tweetbits could be the solution.

Using Tweetbits

Tweetbits is currently available in two different plans: Free and Pro. Unfortunately, there's no clear way of finding out the exact differences, but they seem to be quite vast. For the purpose of this review, we'll focus on the free option, but I'll do my best to tell you everything you need to know about the paid one too.

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Tweetbits takes all the tweets you've favorited elsewhere, and lets you sort them into categories for easy reading. The free plan limits you to 2 categories, so you need to choose wisely. Starting January 1st, it also limits you to 50 tweets at a time. In addition, once you create a category, give it a name and choose a color for it, you can't go back and edit it. If you want to change the group's name or color, you need to delete it and create a new one. Any tweets you have in it will be deleted too.

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Once your categories are set, start dragging and dropping your favorited tweets into them. If you encounter a tweet you're not interested in after all, make it go away by archiving it. Unlike categories, here you can change your mind. Access your archived tweets at any time to restore any that shouldn't be there.

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You can now manage your favorited tweets as sort of a reading list. Mark the tweets you like, categorize them, and go over the categories in your free time to read them. When you're done, simply trash them to get ready for the next batch. Unfortunately, this is where it currently ends. The free plan doesn't offer any additional features, but more might be coming as the platform matures. The sort button seen in the screenshots currently does nothing.

Even as it is, Tweetbits provides an innovative way to sort your tweets for easy reading, and definitely makes the "favorite" option for tweets a more useful one.

Pro Plan

If you're managing a large Twitter account, use Twitter for your business or your blog, or simply care a lot about Twitter, you could consider the Pro plan. In Pro, you get unlimited categories into which to sort your tweets, unlimited storage, unlimited tweets, and according to the website's screenshots, the ability to categorize your mentions, retweets, etc.

The developers promise a slew of new Pro features by next month. These include sharing options, export options, and more.

For these luxuries, you'll have to pay $10/month, which is a bit much considering the full list of features isn't even available, but we'll give Tweetbits time to pull it together and make things better. With all the promised features, this could be worthy service for those who make heavy use of Twitter, although I do wish the free plan wasn't quite so limited.

At this point, Tweetbits is intriguing more than it's useful. But it's off to a good start, and if you're a Twitter lover, it's definitely worth a spin.