UC Unleashed

With social networking being so popular these days, it can be difficult to keep track of all of the various messaging streams having different clients installed, etc. So I was real happy when I stumbled across an add-in for Outlook that brings full Twitter capabilities right to my Inbox. And, it’s free. FREE!

TechHit’s TwInbox product does just that. It adds a set of options to the Outlook ribbon that allow you to tweet, retweet, DM, and more.

Outlook toolbar with TwInbox options (click for larger version)

It will retrieve new tweets every few minutes, and deposit them into a folder of your choice. Tweets show up as a post in Outlook, as shown below:

Sample tweet as seen in Outlook (click for larger version)

Hotkeys can be assigned to make the various options even more convenient. For example, CTRL+ALT+P brings up my New Tweet dialog:

New tweet dialog box (click for larger version)

TwInbox has full support for attaching photos, bit.ly URL shortening, and more. It even builds a list of all Twitter names and hashtags in tweets you receive as sort of a Twitter address book.

This is a great app. I’ve been using it since the beginning, and have had very few issues with it. It makes sending tweets much more convenient, and gives me a full view into what’s going when I use the Unread Mail view in Outlook (my default view). I can forward tweets via email, and added benefit.

My only issue with the app is that if you install it on multiple machines, and have each configured to automatically download tweets, you can end up with duplicates in your mailbox. This is a minor issue for me. I leave one machine running with Outlook open anyways, so that’s the one that gets my tweets. And I just point them to a folder with a retention policy assigned. So tweets only stay in my mailbox for 7 days before being deleted.

Check out TwInbox and I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a great app.