There seems to be a debate raging about whether scheduling tweets is a bad thing. After all, Twitter is a real-time service so the idea of scheduling tweets may strike some people as going against the grain.

My take is scheduling tweets is perfectly fine as long as the tweets provide some kind of value, which can be defined as things that engage, entertain or educate. In a perfect world, tweets should happen in real-time but who has the time to be on Twitter all day so you can participate in real-time conversations.

The reality is Twitter is a parade that never stops. If you want to stay productive, Twitter should be a tool that is used from time to time as opposed to all the time.

This means checking for interesting tweets when it’s convenient. It also means posting tweets when it’s convenient, which includes scheduling tweets to appear when it works for you and your followers.

What’s your take? Is scheduling tweets good or bad, or is this much ado about nothing?

According to Twitter, Twitter.com is the most popular application within the TwitterSphere with 78% of all Twitter users visiting it in the past month.

My initial take was this is a major surprise given a lot of other surveys, including one by Sysomos (a client) suggest that Twitter.com’s market share among places to read and write tweets is well below 50%.

So, where’s the disconnect between what Twitter says and what the market is doing?

Here’s the explanation: While I don’t doubt the fact many people visit Twitter.com at least once per months, I would argue until shown otherwise that people are not actively engaged with Twitter.com.

In thinking about my own approach to Twitter.com, I swing by my account and those of clients at last once a month to update profiles and account settings, change avatars and check out the Find People service. I rarely posts updates from Twitter or read many tweets because it has nowhere near the functionality of Tweetdeck, HootSuite or Seesmic.

According to Twitter, I count among the 78% of Twitter users who have used Twitter.com in the past 30 days. It is, in fact, true but it’s not like I’m really using Twitter.com as anything more than an administrative tool.

So while Twitter can claim Twitter.com is widely used, it’s really a quasi-truth unless Twitter can provide more details about how much time people are actually spending on Twitter.com.

For more, check out Jared Newman’s story in PC World about on Twitter.com still “stinks”.

According to Twitter.com, the most popular Twitter app is Twitter.com with m.twitter.com a distant second. In a blog post, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams talks about how Twitter has been striving to improve its user-friendliness in the mobile market.

The post includes a chart of the top-10 Twitter apps. To be honest, it’s surprisingly Twitter.com is used by 70% of Twitter users given the popularity of third-party applications such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite.

According to Twitter, only 3% of the Twitter ecosystem uses Tweetdeck, which is, by far, the most popular third-party service to read and write tweets.

So far, I have resisted getting an Apple iPad, mostly because it has been difficult to justify when you already own a MacBook and MacBook Pro.

But in the search for excuses to buy an iPad, Twitter may have come up something that makes an iPad purchase irresistible. Twitter has just rolled out a new application for the iPad, which lets Twitter users do things that they wouldn’t be able to do using a PC or a mobile device.

In particular, the ability to check out the links that people embed in their tweets is what make the iPad application so great. All you do is touch the link and the Web page, blog, photo or video appears. It makes Twitter more user-friendly and, of course, the iPad even more attractive.

All in all, it is probably the most innovative thing Twitter has done since the service launched.

Like anything that gets used a lot, Twitter can start to lose its appeal or freshness. Even the most ardent user can experience times when Twitter isn’t as interesting. So, how do you continue to keep Twitter appealing? Here are some tips:

1. Don’t overuse it. There is too much of a good thing, including Twitter. Spending hours pouring over your Twitter stream and making tweets, retweets and replies can lead to a bad case of burn out. Rather than spend too much time on Twitter, a better approach is using it in moderation. There will be times when your Twitter usage could get more active but Twitter doesn’t have to be an always-on tool. In fact, there may be days when you don’t really need to use Twitter.

2. Variety is the spice of life, and the same rule works for Twitter. It means making different kinds of tweets. Sometimes, it’s updates on what you think or what you’re doing; sometimes, it’s links to interesting blogs or newspaper articles; sometimes, it can be photographs, and sometimes it can be retweets.

3. Be willing to receive but not give. As much as Twitter can be a conversation tool, it can be a nice change of pace to just read other people’s tweets, and not make any tweets yourself. This can be a difficult exercise but will provide a much-needed break.

4. Look to follow people beyond your area of interests. Far too often, the people you follow on Twitter have the same interests as you do. They’re involved in the same industry, sector or group. To spice things up, follow interesting people who operate in other spheres, and who have expertise about topics that are interesting but maybe not something focus on very often.

5. Use something other than Twitter.com. A multi-column tool such as Tweetdeck, HootSuite or Seesmic will provide a broader and quicker view of your Twitter landscape. It will let you consume more information in a shorter period of time, thereby improving your productivity and efficiency.

If you’re really into Twitter, you have probably signed up for a lot of different services along the way. This mean providing authorization through Twitter’s OAuth system.

Once in awhile, it’s a good idea to take a look at all your connections to third-party services. To do so, go to your account, and click on “Connections”.

It will display all of the services that have joined. For services no longer being used, click on “Revoke Access”. There may be little risk in having all these connections but there’s nothing wrong with doing some Twitter housekeeping.

Twitter is fascinating in some many different ways but perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects is Twitter.com.

At a time when a flurry of developers were jumping on Twitter’s API to create innovative, creative and productive ways to read and write tweets, Twitter seemed content to maintain a no-frills approach to Twitter.com. The minimalist approach suggested that frills would only ruin the experience.

Meanwhile, Twitter.com’s market share continued to plunge as new users quickly gravitated to sexier options such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic and HootSuite. In many respects, it was like Twitter was content to sell a Ford Focus, while many Twitter users wanted to drive BMWs.

After far too long neglecting Twitter.com, Twitter finally seems to be getting serious about adding some much-needed frills. Some of the improvements include the “Suggestions for You” feature that recommends people to follow based on your interests and existing friends.

Twitter also now features some suggestions about “Who to Follow” on the upper right-hand side home page your account.

And I like the feature that lets you look at one of your followers, and then quickly add them to a list that you have created.

As well, there’s speculation Twitter will soon add a new feature that will display people that you and one of your followers both follow.

The obvious question for Twitter is what too so long to add some frills to Twitter.com? It is playing a massive game of catch-up but, nevertheless, is it encouraging to see some new features.

That said, Twitter is still a long way from Tweetdeck or HootSuite for power users. Maybe it should think about adding features such as multiple columns or the ability to quickly move between accounts.

So when did you climb on the Twitter bandwagon? It’s probably been so many tweets ago, you’ve forgotten. Fortunately, TweetingSince will quickly discover when you got hit with the Twitter bug.

As well, TweetingSince will show other people who signed up the same day so you can compare how many friends and followers they have, and their “grade”.

TweetingSince is another fun and useful service from HubSpot, which also offer TwitterGrader and WebSiteGrader.

Within the Twitter community, the retweet (aka RT) is the ultimate form of flattery. If people retweet one of your tweets is means it has resonated, entertained, intrigued or educated them enough to share it with their followers.

One thing that I have been curious about is quantifying retweets. For example, it would be good to know how many times a Twitter’s users tweets have been been retweeted, or how many times a particular tweet has been retweeted.

I still haven’t found a total retweet tool but one way to quantify your standing within the Twitter community is RetweetRank, which shows how you stack up with everyone else. After entering a username, RetweetRank displays an overall ranking, the percentile and recent retweets.

In an ideal world, it would provide more statistics about total retweets and someone’s most retweeted tweets.

Bottom Line: An interesting look at the retweet world but not enough details to make it compelling.
Rank: 5/10

Twitter’s on a hiring binge – the sort of thing you tend to do after raising a whack of venture capital. To get the word out, Twitter created a pretty cool video. Here’s where you can apply for a job.

One question: I wonder when Twitter will create a video showing us how it plans to make money.