Twitter users certainly don’t have a shortage of Twitter clients from which to choose.  There are many twitter desktop and mobile Twitter apps, but also a few browser-based Twitter clients.  One such browser-based client is Brizzly.  Brizzly follows Twitter’s example in its simplicity, but does add a few nice wrinkles.  Brizzly is not yet open for general release, but read on for a chance to get a Brizzly invite.

Brizzly greets users with a familiar looking interface in the center of the screen.  Just as with Twitter, the first thing you’ll notice is a large column containing posts from your followers.  From there, though, there are several nice features in Brizzly:

1.  Groups

Brizzly allows you to assign the users that you follow into groups.  For example, I have the following groups at present: Favorites, Tech, Sports, and Monitoring.  You can assign a user to more than one group.  You can then click on the name of a group in the left sidebar of Brizzly, and Brizzly will pull in tweets from only the users in that group.

2. Multiple accounts

In Brizzly’s settings, you can add additional Twitter accounts.  Brizzly allows you to associate up to 5 Twitter accounts with one Brizzly account.  From there, it is just a matter of clicking on an account’s avatar, above the tweet box, to switch to that account.

3.  Saved searches

Brizzly allows you to set up saved searches, which work similar to the way they work in other apps, such as in Evernote.  You simply click on "Add a saved search," type in your search terms, and click "OK."  That search query then shows up in a list in your sidebar, along with your other saved search queries.  Click the saved search of your choice, and Brizzly will retrieve the latest tweets that match that query.

4. Trending topics with explanations

Brizzly has trending topics in the right sidebar, just like Twitter.  Brizzly takes it one step further, though.  Each trending topic has a "Why?" link next to it.  Click on "Why?" and Brizzly will present you with an explanation as to why the topic is trending.  Then click on "Search," and you’ll be presented with a list of the most recent tweets containing that trending topic term.

5. Navigation enhancements

It is a simple feature, but a nice one.  In Brizzly, you can tap the J and K keys on your keyboard to scroll down and up, respectively, through tweets.  The currently selected tweet is highlighted in gray.

6.  Expanded links and media

Another nice feature in Brizzly is the way that it automatically embeds content from certain links, such as Youtube videos, or TwitPic photos.  It also expands links from some URL shorteners, such as bit.ly, making your browsing much safer.

There may be Twitter clients that provide more features than Brizzly, but the beauty of Brizzly is how easy it is to use, while still providing helpful features.  Brizzly has other features not yet mentioned here, such as photo uploads and the ability to mute users.  I’ve previously used TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop, among other contenders, but always gravitated back to using the plain old Twitter web site.  Brizzly is the first Twitter client that I’ve continued to use, for an extended period.

If you think you’d like to give Brizzly a try, let us know why in the comments.  The first ten people to comment will get a Brizzly invite code.  Make sure that you fill in your email address in the email box when commenting, so that we can get you your code.  We won’t use it for anything except sending you your invite code (we hate spam as much as you do).