Twitter Toys
I have been using Twitter for a while now and have found it to be a lot of fun to use. Not only is it a great way to connect with people, it has also been a great resource to get people’s opinions and suggestions. Using Twitter does not have to be all work though because part of the reason to use it is to show that you are not just some mindless corporate robot. You want to show your human side, and of course as human beings we need to play once in awhile. With that in mind here are some of the Twitter toys that I find amusing.
TwitterLocal
Since moving to Regina it has been fun to connect with some more local people on Twitter. Finding local people can be a little hard, since the Twitter search really does not give you many options for searching. TwitterLocal to the rescue! Enter a city, state or postal code/zip code and you can get RSS feeds of local Twitterers to follow. You can subscribe to the RSS feed in your feed reader or you can view the latest Tweets and click through to follow the people you are interested in. It has been great to find some local people to connect with. Someday maybe we could even get a Regina Tweetup going, who knows.
Twitter Grader
Twitter Grader is addictive, you have been warned. Face it you want to know how you stack up against all the other Twitter users out there right? It is fun to see how you stack up against the mob. I think I do pretty good, a 98.6 out of 100. Considering I don’t try very hard. They have badges you can add to your website/blog and they even have a Twitter Elite. Depending on what your location is. I have not quite made the Twitter Elite in Canada yet, but maybe someday. Here is a sample of the badge you can add to your website/blog.
TwitterCounter
TwitterCounter does just that counts the number of followers you have and gives you a badge that you can place on website/blog. Similar to a RSS subscriber count it is a great way to show how popular you are on Twitter. Not only does it give you a button to place on you website it also predicts how many followers you will have in the future. You can see my TwitterCounter button over on the sidebar.
TweetValue
This is a new one that I just found today. Enter your Twitter username and it will give you an estimated value of what your Twitter is worth. Not sure if it is per tweet or the overall value of your account, but I suppose it does not really matter. My account came back at $445.00 today. If someone wants to give me $445.00 for a tweet let me know, I might be interested. ;) Of course they offer badges for you to place on your website/blog as well.
twubble
Looking for some new friends to follow? twubble will help to find you some. It looks at the people you already follow and finds others that they follow that you might be interested in. You can even follow them right from the twubble page.
Twittad
If you are looking to make a few extra dollars before Christmas, Twittad might be for you. I have not personally tried this service but Twittad places advertisements on your profile background. It is not as intrusive as the new service called Magpie, that actually tweets ads on your account. At least with Twittad you can set your own price for your background. If you visit the Twittad website you can find some people that have actually sold their profile backgrounds so you can see what they look like. If I had to choose between Twittad and Magpie I would go with Twittad.
TwitterTag
I am a little biased on TwitterTag since I own a part of it along with Rhett. If you subscribe to my RSS feed, you might already be familiar with my TwitterTag. TwitterTag makes it easy for you to place your latest tweet using the badge that it creates. It is different than many of the other Twitter badge sites because it actually outputs an image and does not use Javascript. That makes it easy to use in the footers of RSS feeds, on your website/blog, on forums or other places where you can add an image. You can change the colours of the border, background, text, header etc.
Here is a sample of a TwitterTag with the default colours. 
We have plans to add other sizes of images, maybe a top Twitter users list and a few other surprises. Just need to get some time to work on the site.
Those are my favourite Twitter toys, what are your favourite Twitter toys? You are also welcome to follow me on Twitter if you want to know what I am up to.