

Mashable’s Spark of Genius series highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, see details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.
Name: Twimbow
Quick Pitch: Twimbow is a colorful, web-based Twitter client with a focus on filtering.
Genius Idea: This app embraces the concept that, for some of us, Twitter is the new email.
At first glance, the interface will remind you of Tweetdeck and Seesmic Web so much it’ll make your head hurt. The feature sets are almost identical, with both Seesmic and Tweetdeck having the relative advantages of age, stability, and a generally more thorough toolbelt for users, including multiple apps and multiple accounts.
(Note: While Tweetdeck doesn’t yet have a web-based client, we saw them demo one at Google I/O.)
Twimbow’s main distinction lies withing its bright and shiny interface, which lets you assign a different color to different users and groups and change the color of a tweet shown in the app by adding a #color tag. You can then sort and filter tweets by color. In the end, it works kind of like Gmail’s labels and folders.
In future iterations, you’ll be able to track and color-code keywords, too, making Twimbow an interesting and viable option for brand managers and social media marketers.
All your conversations, DMs, favorites and retweets are contained in a single column; the colored filters do the sorting for you, even turning certain people or “colors” on and off at your discretion. (This is a particularly great feature when a buddy is attending a conference and decides to start live-tweeting a panel that has no relevance to you. You can temporarily “mute” the chatterbox without unfollowing him or her.)
Twimbow’s creators used HTML5 and CSS3 to create this interesting and useful web app.
If you think this app is something you’d like to test or use, go to the Twimbow site to sign up for notification. The app is currently in a gloriously buggy pre-alpha with a proper alpha coming in a few weeks and a more stable public beta rolling out this fall.
How do you think Twimbow will fare in the competitive market of Twitter clients?
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
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Reviews: Facebook, Gmail, Seesmic, TweetDeck, Twitter
Tags: spark-of-genius, twitter, twitter app, twitter client