If you need something more business-oriented, includes strong support for Twitter search queries and keyword tracking. With its highly customizable interface, you can add multiple tabs, each containing multiple columns, to keep a bird's-eye view on a multitude of Twitter and other accounts, search queries, and tracked keywords. This full-featured social media Web app supports a number of services beyond Twitter, including , , and . It's great for individuals and teams, as you can do things like assign tweets to other members for follow-up and schedule tweets to go out at a later time.

is another useful service, though not exactly a Twitter search tool. This is more of a "personal analytics" tool, which allows you to see how much influence a user has on his or her Twitter community. It's a good way to find out not just who is tweeting about your product or an important topic, but which users are the big hitters among your community who can help get the word out about news or beneficial changes.

If analytics are your thing, the powerful tool can act as a dashboard for your social activity across Twitter and other services. Use this tool to create dynamic charts that display a term's appearances over a period of time, compare the activity of two or more keywords, and use filter by criteria like mood and even gender.

I've only scratched the surface of what's possible when you decide to harness the power of searching Twitter. Whether you're looking to build a community for your Website, gather feedback to guide product development, crowd-source support for a cause or recent disaster, or simply meet new people who share your undying enthusiasm for Babylon 5, the pulse of world--or just your local area--is just a Twitter search box away.