HopeYouDontMind.com (HYDM) is a dedicated “customer discovery” tool for Twitter. In HYDM, you create a set of searches for keywords related to a business, product or service and HYDM continuously scans Twitter for them. You open your HYDM homepage at the start of each day, minimize it and then simply listen for the subtle audio alerts that tell you what’s happening: Search results found? Incoming DM or Mention? Did a customer tweet your keywords somewhere nearby? You can get on with your day and let HYDM do the searching.

This last feature makes use of Twitter “Geo Tagging”, a relatively new Twitter feature that marks a user’s tweet with their current location. You can set your own location and a range (up to say 50km) and HYDM will give you additional “radar” audio alerts that let you know a potential customer is nearby, is tweeting YOUR keywords and may be looking to buy YOUR products. If they are close, you can click a single button and tweet them a link that will then display Google Map directions from their location to yours. A very exciting and unique feature that will encourage customers to visit you.

Other features include a single stream of tweets (no switching between columns or expanding/collapsing forms), color-coding (to help you prevent spam and focus on potential leads), predefined “Stamp” tweets (to get your message out quickly and consistently), multiple twitter accounts (all merged into the single stream), flexible and powerful search terms (including negative keywords, exact phrases, location based, etc.), view conversation history, etc.

The key difference is that HYDM is a dedicated service. The current batch of Twitter clients treat search as a secondary feature and managing multiple search results can become unmanageable very quickly. HYDM puts search at the forefront and gives business owners the dedicated tools required to find new customers and reach out to them quickly and effectively, while they’re still thinking about buying their products. The best aspect is that you don’t have to sit and watch the screen – just leave HYDM running with your speakers turned on and simply take a look when you hear an alert.

HYDM allows you to hear virtual customers “walk in” to your business and quickly approach them to help, advise and eventually encourage them to buy from you.

And it’s free.