Off-Topic: MetroTwit, a Windows 7 Twitter program Metro-style

Visit the MetroTwit site to try the Beta.

Windows Phone 7's most distinctive quality is no doubt its gorgeous Metro UI. Microsoft has forged an entire design philosophy from the refreshing style and we've seen evidence of it having a large presence in the upcoming Windows 8 for PCs and tablets. But if you want a taste of Metro goodness on your Windows 7 computer right now, there's the wonderful application MetroTwit for you to try.

The program, currently in public beta, was created by Long Zheng (a member of ChevronWP7), David Golden, and Winston Pang. MetroTwit is touted as, "a first-class native application that shines on Windows", and "celebrates an elegant and clean user interface that's beautiful to look at and a pleasure to read". By default the program has three 'columns': Friends, Mentions, and Direct Messages. However, MetroTwit also lets you add more columns which makes the app very flexible. MetroTwit also supports in-app image viewing, infinite scrolling, autocompletion for hashtags and users, conversation views, URL shortening, unobtrusive notifications, themes, and Windows 7 taskbar notifications.

As you can see in our configuration below, we have the default setup plus a column dedicated to every tweet with #WP7 included. In the past week of use, we found MetroTwit to be extremely beneficial for increasing our productivity. We even broke a few stories thanks to the program.

Even if you don't use the application for blogging like we do, it's a pleasure to use and goes along quite nicely with Windows Phone 7. In fact, MetroTwit just announced a partnership with Rowi, a popular Windows Phone Twitter client, to create "The Nest". Basically it sounds like MetroTwit is going to be receiving continuous client-like interoperability with Rowi (i.e. everything you do on MetroTwit appears on Rowi). The program is clearly on the rise and we definitely recommend you check it out. Take the Public Beta for a spin at the MetroTwit site and tell us what you think in the comments below.

Click to enlarge