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Tunatic (tested v1.0.1b Windows)
Song identifier
Developer: Wildbits
OS: Windows/Mac (Tunalyzer for Mac only)
Price: Free
Site: http://wildbits.com/tunatic/

One of the better known iPhone applications is a song-discovery utility named Shazam, which is also available for Blackberry and Android phones. The idea is simple: if you hear a song you don't know, just activate Shazam and hold your phone up to the music. Shazam will then tell you everything you want to know about the song, including where to buy it.

The one hitch for the less gadget-inclined is that Shazam is only available on mobile phones. Enter Tunatic, a program that can identify songs using your Windows or Mac computer. Much like Shazam, you simply hook up a mic to your computer and point it at the music source. Because of the microphone, Tunatic isn't limited to identifying songs playing on your computer; it can also figure out songs playing on the radio or on television.

Tunatic's success rate depends largely on two things: sound quality and volume. A radio signal filled with static will yield a much lower hit rate than a crystal clear internet radio stream. Tunatic's detection speed also varies with the song; it'll pop up info for some songs after only a few seconds, while others can take almost a minute (Tunatic gives up entirely after 60 seconds). Luckily, Tunatic's database isn't static; using the Tunalyzer companion, you can scan your MP3 collection and send in the audio fingerprints.

Unfortunately, the last version of Tunatic was released in 2006, but the database does recognize newer tracks so the database still appears to be receiving updates from users. If you find yourself often wondering what it was you just heard, Tunatic may offer the answer.

Tweetie (tested v1.0.1 Mac)
Twitter client
Developer: atebits
OS: Mac (also available for iPhone/iPod Touch)
Price: Free for ad-supported version, $19.95 USD for ad-free version
Site: http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac/

Not all Mac programs are equal. Diehard Mac users, drawn to the platform partially because of its unique mix of thoughtful interface quirks and elegant visual design, are perhaps the pickiest when it comes to labeling an application as a true-blue Mac app. Cross-platform programs like Firefox, though they may have their charms, often don't make the grade for Mac connoisseurs because of user-interface concessions that seem out of place on a Mac, either functionally or visually.

Until recently, the high-profile client of choice for Macs was TweetDeck, previously reviewed in this column. But TweetDeck is a cross-platform Adobe AIR application, and though its distinctive, minimalist style is fetching, it definitely doesn't look like a Mac app. The AIR foundation means it's also a bit more sluggish than a native Mac program. Atebits comes to the rescue with the newly released Tweetie.

Unlike TweetDeck's multiple-column display, Tweetie's single column is stripped down and no-nonsense, preferring understated elegance to information overload. Though this means power users might feel undernourished, for most people Tweetie offers just the right amount of Twitter exposure. The client even tosses in a few new tricks, like the ability to see all the replies to another Twitter user — perfect for when you want to pretend to be someone else.

The free version inserts ads into your timeline on a regular basis, but so far they've been relatively few and far between, making it a viable option. Either way, if you're looking for a Twitter client that is built from the ground up for OS X, welcome Tweetie into your heart.

ConvoTrack
Internet buzz aggregator
Developer: Improving The Web
OS: Web-based
Price: Free
Site: http://convotrack.com/

Discussion is one of the foundations of the modern Internet. Never have so many people been able to engage in open conversation with other users on every topic imaginable. Much of the Internet is built upon a foundation of facilitating discussion, from Usenet to instant messaging to social networks. And even though online discussions tend to feel less like intellectual debate and more like mud wrestling, the ability to make a pithy statement about a topic you hold dear and have a stranger respond in kind is intoxicating.

ConvoTrack is a discussion tracker built on the BackType comment search API. Oftentimes blogs will link to an interesting article or a nifty new site and offer a venue to discuss the link. But even if a thousand blogs link to the same site, the result is not one large discussion made up of the readership of all the blogs, but rather a thousand separate conversations that never connect. ConvoTrack attempts to bring all those discussions together, as well as Twitter posts and Digg and Reddit threads.

When you activate the ConvoTrack bookmarklet on a website, it adds a sidebar that mixes the various discussions together, allowing you to see what the internet has to say about the article you're reading or the Flash game you've just found. The tracker does have a few blind spots — for example, most YouTube videos won't show any results, largely because people tend to keep their comments to the video page itself — but ConvoTrack is a great way to gauge Internet opinion on sites you're interested in.