25 Creative Uses of

CommuterFeed aggregates tweets about traffic from people stuck in jams. By following your city’s feed, you can get updates about ongoing traffic tangles. New Jersey Transit riders have created a similar service.

Remember the Milk is an application that integrates with Twitter to help you remember all those things that can slip through the cracks.

Botanicalls’ DIY Twitter watering project uses moisture probes to allow your plant to tweet you a message when it needs a drink.

Two projects on Twitter are trying to share an entire novel tweet by tweet: James Joyce’s Ulysses or Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

When Tyler Aaron Menscher (@kickbee) was born in January, he already had hundreds of followers. That’s because his dad, Corey Menscher, created a device that recorded and tweeted his son’s kicks from the womb as they happened.

The Belfast-based @cookbook tweets recipes in 140 characters or less, boasting more than 16,000 followers.
Here’s a recent tweet: Spinach Nut Salad: top 5c torn spinach w dice apple/c mix nuts/3T parmesan; +whisked 3T nut oil/T wine vinegar/.5t soy sauce&Dijon&dill/s+p.

Quitter is a Twitter tool from Tobacco Free Florida that helps track how many cigarettes you smoke each day, charting your progress until you’re smoke-free.

James Buck, a 29-year-old UC Berkley journalism student, was arrested in Egypt in April 2008. He sent a Twitter message that said one thing: Arrested. The tweet alerted his friends, who contact authorities. Buck was walked out of jail the next day with an Egyptian attorney hired by UC Berkley and the help of the US Embassy.

Strawpoll lets you drop mini-polls into your Twitter stream – a quick way to make weekend plans among friends.

Have @timer remind you of your meetings – or just to refill that parking meter in 15 minutes.

Look for opportunities Twithire or on @tweetajob, a virtual career fair that also shares interview tips.

With @trackthis, you can keep tabs on FedEx, UPS and DHL shipments.

Keep a diet journal complete with calories for everything you put in your mouth – and if you don’t know how the calorie count, TweetWhatYouEat will help you fill in the blanks. Foodfeed is another option.

Share your 140-character reviews with MicroRevie.ws, on Twitter at @hreview.

If you follow some talkative folks but don’t want to permanently unfollow them, you can snooze them for a certain time so you don’t receive their tweets.

Deck out your Twitter account with free profile backgrounds from Twitter Backs, Twitter Patterns and Tweet Backs. Or pick out some free Twitter buttons from Siah Design.

Twittytunes lets you tweet what you're listening, watching or reading, and Blip.fm offers a similar service.

Remember PostSecret, the project that collected anonymous confessions the world over? Combine it with Twitter, and this is what you’ve got.

Curse Bird tracks the dirty mouths.

Boast your Xbox 360 skills with Xbox 360 Gamer Tag or Twee60, which will automatically update your followers with what you’re playing.

Did your friend spot you a few bucks for coffee the other day? Foamee tracks who you owe coffee or beer to.

Arrr, Matey! Turn your tweets into pirate speak with this fun tool, particularly useful on Sept. 19 for Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Use Deal Tagger to tell your followers about the bargains you find.

Juxtapose your tweets on top of silly cat images using LOL feeds.

This tool comes in handy when you’re betting or playing games with your friends.