Seesmic, a popular social streaming app for iPhone and iPod touch, has just been updated and is now available as a free download from the App Store. Naturally, the new version supports Retina Display and multitasking, and now lets you create and add users to Twitter lists, check your private Facebook messages, pull-down to refresh and integrate your Instapaper and Read it Later accounts. It also lets you view your replies and private DMs in a threaded conversation view, and supports your Twitter and Facebook streams.

When Twitter decided they needed an official iPhone client for their microblogging platform, they didn’t start from scratch: they bought one of the best apps that already existed: Tweetie. How does the free third version from Twitter match up to the paid version? Did they add amazing new features, or did they dumb it down to make is more “accessible?”

MacHeist asked the popular question, “Anyone want free software?” on their Facebook fan page yesterday, and, as usual, they weren’t being rhetorical. After generating a lot of deeply insightful “yes” answers, they offered a link to download Socialite, a social media aggregator from Real Mac Software. But there is a catch to get Socialite, a social media aggregator, for free.

The application formally known as Tweetie has been removed from the App Store to make room for the official Twitter branded iPhone app. This app—which is basically Tweetie with a name change to make it official—is now available in the App Store both internationally and in the U.S. It’s labeled as version 3.0 (up from 2.x) which means that along with the re-branding, there are some new features.

Though I have no proof, one would assume that social media use must over-index with iPad owners. With additional screen space, being able to literally touch the social graph, and the ability to hop between programs, the iPad is the home portal for sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others. Here are my thoughts on three iPad optimized Twitter apps: Twittelator, Twitterific and TweetDeck.

Atebits have aimed to keep the interface looking like an Apple iPhone app should look, but ensuring that as many features as possible are included, without over-facing the app itself. I think they’ve done a great job in that respect. With so many new features and a great user interface, I would certainly recommend Tweetie 2 to any iPhone Twitter user.

When I previewed the Tweetdeck beta for OS X, I called it the Photoshop of Twitter clients; an extremely powerful tool for people who needed to filter a lot of information on Twitter. At the time, it was a lot more power than I needed, but as I use Twitter more and more, searching posts and users, I’ve come to rely on it as my primary client. Now there’s a Tweetdeck client for iPhone that provides a lot of the same tools, as well as synching information between the two.

At what point did Twitter stop being a web application and become a platform? There’s a whole industry being built around adding things to Twitter: pictures, video, links, and even maps. GeoTweeter is a Twitter client that allows you to post tweets with a map link embedded. The map can be of your current location (using the iPhone/iPod touch wireless tools), or you can create one using the address or longitude/latitude coordinates.

TweetMic is an app that lets you post audio messages to your Twitter account from the comfort of your iPhone nearly anywhere, provided you have a decent internet connection. The application is simple. It does what it’s supposed to relatively well, and, honestly, little else.

Twitter is the latest thing in social networking. Think of it as a micro-blog. While the Twitter website offers a basic interface for posting “Tweets,” a ton of clients (both for iPhone and desktop) as well as web apps have flourished, and we’ll be taking you through them, letting you know what features and drawbacks you can expect to find.