The recent developments in Twitter have put it way ahead in the race for the best social networking site ever. Acquisition of several apps along with the inclusion of a slew of new and efficient features justifies the 800 million dollars worth of investment that went into this company.

The news in the market, as announced by the company recently, is that Twitter eco-system consists of more than one million apps. Twitter approached developers to build applications using its eco-freindly application programming interface. This needs a mention as Twitter has never had a amicable relationship with developers. Nonetheless, though all these apps have a great role to play in defining the social networking experience that Twitter offers, there are only ten that I consider to be the most determining of all.

With the introduction of Twitter’s photo gallery, certain popular Twitter apps/components like Yfrog and Twitpic have become more or less redundant. With the ten apps listed below your twitting experience can undergo a massive overhaul.

1. Buffer – Helps To Enhance Clicks On Your Tweets

The application Buffer helps in increasing the number of clicks on Tweets by nearly 200%. This application is important for people like me who do late night Tweeting. This way, the Tweets that generally used to miss the targeted audience reach them well. It generally spaces out your tweets during a day so that they are published at a time when people take notice of them. You can always press the Buffer button on a webpage if you think of sharing it. It can be done using browser extensions on Chrome, Firefox and Safari.

2. ManageFlitter – Remove Unwanted Followers

The ManageFlitter option helps you get rid of followers that don’t add valuable content to your Twitter stream. It is just a matter of few clicks and you are over and done with them. Using this app doesn’t even require you to create any accounts. All you need to do is sign in to Twitter and get rid of those followers. The app allows you to find the followers who clutter your Twitter network stream.

3. Twoolr – Analyze Your Twitter Account

Twoolr ensures that analyzing your Twitter account can’t get any better. It is important to know about the efforts that you’re putting in your Twitter account and return on your investment. The Twoolr dashboard provides you with complete analytical reporting of activities with regardss to your Twitter account. You get detailed reporting on the number of followers, retweets and mentions. To save time and browse through the information Twoolr offers can be tedious; to counter this, you can subscribe to weekly reports to be delivered to your mailbox. That can be an efficient way of managing the overwhelming information Twoolr provides.

4. Formulists – Efficiency In Maintaining Lists

Formulists helps in efficient creation of lists. As your account grows, creating lists becomes very important. It is very easy to create and maintain lists with Formulists. A few important settings on your part and people will be put into the right list automatically as they re-Tweet, follow or mention you. Keeping in touch with followers who matter the most to you is made easy by this application, thanks in no small measure to its ability to keep tab on your most valued followers, with whom you often interact.

5. Twylah – Getting More Out of Tweeting

Normally your tweets have a lifespan of about an hour; thereafter they are lost. Twylah helps you to increase the lifespan of your tweets. The Tweets you posted earlier are organized within a customized brand page of your own and appears like a blog ordering them by the most important topics of your tweets. The ability of sending Power Tweets using this app is what impresses me the most. It uses the link and places it on new sites by embedding codes and adds additional related content around the Twylah preview area.

6. Tweriod – Tracking Activity Of Your Followers

There was always a need for an application that would give you an approximate idea of the time when you Tweets are likely to be seen by your followers. The app Tweriod has answered the need well. As soon as you log in to your Twitter account, Tweroid generates a customized report for you. The report will help you to decide on the right times to Tweet, which is important as it will make your Tweets more visible to your followers.  Tweeting with the combination of Tweriod and Buffer makes the greatest impact possible.

7. InboxQ – Answer Questions To Help Others

With the help of the app InboxQ, you can put forth your knowledge and ideas about specific subjects to help others. Using this application you can set up key phrases relevant to your area of interest. The application searches throughout Twitter for questions relating to the terms and sends those queries right to you where you can answer them. This helps you in connecting with people relevant to you. You can choose to get the questions marked as ‘to dos’. The questions you have answered can be found in the archives they are saved in.

8. WhoTweetedMe – Which Members Retweeted You?

The app WhoTweetedMe does not require you to signup or sign-in; you can copy the link of any webpage which you want to tweet about. The app displays the re-Tweets your content received. Information provided by the application enables you to know the time of the re-Tweets and an average count of the followers. This app will also show you a list of the members, with most number of followers who have retweeted you. Using this information you can send a note of thanks to them and in turn connect with them and enhance your following/followers.

9. Twtrland – Learn About Your Followers

If you are interested in learning more about your followers, Twtrland will definitely prove to be of great help to you. You will get lot of valuable information about the users too, e.g. their date of joining Twitter, the frequency of the re-Tweets they receive on their posts, information about their top Tweets among other useful information. The pie chart that comes with this app is my personal favorite as it categorizes the Tweets as links, replies and plain and simple tweets. Now, you will be able to analyze if they will bring value to your profile.

10. StrawberryJ.am – Read Tweets With Efficiency

StrawberryJ.am is the last application I am going to discuss in here. This wonderfully designed app is basically a reader that is powered by Twitter. What it does is that it reorders the Tweets in your stream by the most mentioned. This saves a lot of time as you will get to see the Tweets that are of utmost relevance to you. It allows you to re-Tweet the Tweets right then or later. These streams can be created for hashtags, list and searches also; this feature makes the application of really useful.

11. KeepStream – Collect your most valuable Tweets

Another recent discovery of mine is an App called KeepStream. It allows you to make collections of tweets and organize them in more readable format. You can try collecting a few of these tweets and then embed them as a blogpost on your site. One example I found very handy is to use KeepStream to collect tweets from an event or a Twitterchat to share it with people who couldn’t attend. The fact that you can follow others and see their tweet collections makes for a richer experience of past tweets.

12. The Archivist  - Search the Archives.

This is a service that uses the Twitter Search API. It helps find archived tweets. Using the information that the tool returns you can create an archive, analyze, export or share the Tweet. This is developed by the Microsoft’s MIX Online team and help you gather older information easily and effectively.

13. Dlvr.it - Distribute your Blog to Social Media Sites

This tool provides you the option to unite your blog with your Twitter. If you have written a blog and want to share it with your Twitter followers, this tool makes the transition easy. It provides you the option to syndicate content from social media.

14. HootSuite – All in One Dashboard

It is a tool that helps you manage multiple social networks all using one client the HootSuite. It also makes it easy to manage many users over many social network accounts for companies that have more than one contributor. Additionally, it also provides graphs to show individual and group contribution statistics.

15. Ifttt – Optimise Your Tweeting

This nifty new App allows you to create social triggers in order to connect the syndication of your various accounts more easily. So for example if you save a new bookmark to delicious, then a tweet will be posted. Or if you are mentioned on Twitter you want an email to be sent. You can optimize it fully to your needs. Different to other syndication Apps such as dlvr.it or Twitterfeed you can be a lot more creative by linking natively completely unrelated apps.

Update: Bonus Twitter App:

Commun.it – Build Your Own Twitter Community

This is another very innovative App. Commun.it shows you all your followers and orders them by most engaged, supporters and influencers. This means you can focus on these interactions and build out your network beyond these connections. I found this particularly useful to know whom I should engage with more in order to get noticed. What I like best is that the App suggests you potential leads showing mentions of your brand or blog outside your network. It also helped me in identifying the retweets when my name was not mentioned in it.

According to me these are top 15 Twitter tools that can make using Twitter more efficiently. DO you have your favorite list? If yes, do share them with me. Happy Tweeting!