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A few days ago I received an email from Research in Motion.

RIM is pleased to invite you to participate in a limited preview of an upcoming application for BlackBerry smartphones. We’re offering you and a few other select BlackBerry and Twitter fans the chance to be the first to try a beta version of Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones.

You’ll have about a month to play with the app and share your thoughts on the BlackBerry Support Forums and in BlackBerry App World before it’s available to everyone else.

The application requires activation with data plan with Internet service browsing capabilities, a BlackBerry smartphone with at least 64-MB of built in memory (with at least 750KB available) and BlackBerry Device Software v4.5 or higher.

As you might expect I jumped at the chance.

Once I received the instructions and the secret password download and installation on my Storm2 test handset was a snap. I was up and running within two minutes.

After putting this beta software through its paces, my first impressions are very, very positive. I couldn’t wait to share my thoughts with you.

I know you can access Twitter on any browser – but this new BlackBerry app integrates Twitter into the smartphone’s entire operating system. That means if you’re inside your BlackBerry’s e-mail you now have the option to send a Twitter Tweet or Direct Message from your e-mail queue. That’s in addition to being able to IM or send a post to your Facebook account from your handset’s e-mail software.

Also, in addition to application’s large, blue “t” icon (which you can move onto your home screen) there’s also a tiny, little Twitter logo at the top of the screen telling you how many new tweets have arrived in your Twitter account since you last checked.

The BlackBerry Twitter app allows you to do many of the groovy things you’re able to do in your computer’s Web browser. According to RIM you can reply to tweets and also re-tweet, post a link from your BlackBerry Browser, take a funny picture and upload it (serious pictures too) and, of course, follow friends and search for popular topics.

This new app makes my Storm2 a very worthy tweeting platform and could broaden the appeal of BlackBerries for the general cell phone buying public. This new Twitter interface is clean, clear and easy to master. Integration with other BlackBerry messaging functions is a major plus.

The only fault I could find is the overall speed of the program. Not that any Blackberry software title is as speedy as similar titles on many other phones (especially devices – like the Google Nexus One – which boast Snapdragon processors inside).

This is not especially a fault of the Twitter software per se. I’ll bet that if and when RIM begins using more modern processors capable of super-speeds that their apps will benefit from the overall boost in speed.

Then again, BlackBerries are the favorite communications tool of big business, Wall Street and even the President of the United States for one reason: secure e-mail.

I’m pretty sure those power users won’t be standing around measuring the ultimate speed of their tweets. They do care about getting e-mail quickly and safely.  That’s really what made BlackBerry a major force in mobile devices. in the first place