Hello all my favorite networkers and social media kids! This afternoon I attending one of many networking events that I love going to and really, for the first time, made note of something that actually pissed me off. Here's the deal. If you are going to an event, especially one where you are trying to network at, don't be on your cell phone! Plain and simple. What impact are you trying to make when you are in the middle of a crowd and you are checking out your twitter feed?

Now I know that social networking is important in this day and age, but no matter how great the iPhone or Blackberry is, personal connections will always trump following someone on twitter or facebook.

Real quick. This morning HootSuite launched its much needed iPhone app, thus joining the battle of which developer can provide the best Twitter application for the iPhone. In the past I have used Tweetie 2 and have had no real complaints about what  Atebits has to offer for an iPhone app. Alas, with word of mouth spreading like a wildfire, I anticipated what the crazy birds at HootSuite would deliver.

To start out with, I am not a big fan of Hootsuite as a web based twitter application. I think it is a little too cluttered for my liking and though I am not a fan of Adobe Air, it would be nice to see HootSuite come out with a desktop app. But regardless of my personal feelings for the original online application, I still wanted to see what the hype was about for the HootSuite iPhone App.

So, this morning, at 8:45 I downloaded HootSuite on my iPhone. 

Here are my first impressions:

• It crashes-The frequent crashes are something that I expected when I downloaded this app on launch day. With the hype behind the product, it is only expected to have some crash issues when you have thousands of people downloading at the same time.
• Nice UI-The user interface is pretty nice. I love the slick design and it is pretty easy to use and view streams.
• Better than online-As mentioned above, I am not a fan of the web based version of HootSuite. I think the iPhone app is an all around improvement.
• It is to the point-Tweetie is a great app; however, there are a ton of features that I don't even use or care for. The HootSuite iPhone app has a nice 'to the point' layout without being bogged down with random stupidity.
• Post date tweets-A nice feature that I am still contemplating how I will use it. Though it is nice to know that if I really want to tweet something, but couldn't let the cat out of the bag just yet, I could post date a tweet for a later time.
• The Stats-This is the best, the worst and the smartest part of this application. The user is able to get stats on how many people click on links that they have tweeted. This is a great treat for me because I like to have a quick way of how visitors are view my random blog posts. On the other hand, the stats feature is bad because the user must use HootSuites' url shortener, ow.ly. This is a small setback for those that are dedicated to certain twitter tools. The smart part about this move is providing a unique service which will in turn make for a higher demand by users in order to have the specific functionality.

So, that is my quick review of HootSuite. Overall I am impressed with what it has to offer. As I mentioned to some people today, it is a strong contender in the ever-growing race for top billing in the Twitter iPhone app category.

HootSuite for the iPhone can be purchased for $1.99 at the iTunes App Store.