Post by David Pierce. Find me on Twitter.

My biggest beef with Twitter, as long as I’ve been using it, is that is does a poor job handling conversations. Unless you’re half the conversation (and usually even if you are), it’s really hard to see what’s going on – all you see is the random reply, without any context or background.

I’m hoping Twitter puts a “see whole conversation” button in the interface, allowing you to see who a given person is replying, to and what they’re saying. That way, when someone tells you you’re hilarious, you’ll understand perfectly what it is that they found so hysterical. Or, when you see someone else’s tweet saying “Wow. That is the single most incredible thing anyone has ever tweeted in the history of the world”, you’ll be able to find just what that is.

Or maybe Twitter should just buy Twitoaster. What Twitoaster does is thread your Twitter conversations, allowing you all the background and context you could possibly imagine. You’ll be able to see responses to your tweets, whose tweets are getting the most response, and who the cool kids really are on Twitter.

To get started using Twitoaster, all you have to do is follow @twitoaster on Twitter. There’s no account to create or login to figure out – just follow, and you’ll get your tweets toasted!

What does toasted mean? It means that Twitoaster will take your tweets, gather all replies to them, and thread the conversation for you. Twitoaster also extracts hashtags and links from your tweets to make them easier to read and search.

Though you never actually have to give Twitoaster a login or password, more features are opened up to you if you do. You can login using your Twitter account info, and then easily send tweets and replies to your friends. When you’re logged in, you’ll see some neat information about your account – reply statistics, your Twitoaster ranking (based on how many replies your tweets get), and some other Twitter info. In addition to showing your total number of followers, Twitoaster sorts out the people you’re following who are also having their tweets toasted.

The Twitoaster rankings are a neat feature, which lets you see who’s sparking and creating the most conversation on Twitter. It only features people who are following @twitoaster, which isn’t a huge number, but I imagine this one’s going to grow.

Replies are an excellent way to figure out who is really popular on Twitter, much more than simply the number of followers a person has. Twitter is all about conversation, and Twitoaster does a much better job of highlighting conversation than Twitter currently does.

What’s your favorite Twitter app? How do you manage the conversations you have on Twitter?

Photo: oskay