Today we tested the Twitbin Twitter plug-in for the Firefox browser.

The install was frankly a pain, not that it was hard or anything but we had to close and restart the browser, not once, but twice. Maybe this isn’t such a big deal for most but when you have 30 – 50 tabs open at the time, it takes some time to close them all down and restart. Then once you have restarted, you have to go into the plug-ins menu and enable Twitbin, then restart again.

Once installed, it is a pretty good client and it sits in your side bar nicely (where your bookmarks appear when you press (cmd + b or ctrl + b). Not much else on the functionality. You can refresh tweets, choose friends or public timeline and go to the Twitbin homepage.

There is one more thing that stands out with Twitbin that we haven’t seen with other Twitter clients. IT HAS ADS. It isn’t obtrusive or anything but it is the point. The ads are linked back to a company called SocialAd, which when you goto their homepage, looks like they are not fully up and running yet. It gets more interesting though. The SocialAd company is owned by Infinimedia, the same company who has released Twitbin. Hmm. So what it looks like is that Infinimedia is trying to launch an ad network with Twitbin being the first client. Maybe client is the wrong word. If they are able to get mass adoption with Twitbin, they will have an audience and therefore be able to sell ad space and get a start in the ad biz.

Smart idea I suppose, but will the people accept this and use Twitbin? Or will they throw Twitbin in the bin? Especially when there are at least 7 other twitter plug-ins for firefox that are ad free?

What will we be doing with Twitbin? Well, frankly, firefox is enough of a pig on memory as it is and we don’t want another thing bogging it down. Also, the idea of the ads and Infinimedia launching an ad network on the back of our Twitter usage doesn't sit well. Twitbin is going straight into the bin.