After the announce of Paratweet, a great new service for live events, conferences, etc., I’ve been looking for a little “cheaper” alternatives that could provide the same great level of functionality.

I haven’t found one yet, but Twitterfall is a half-step closer.

Twitterfall is a real-time tracking service for keywords, trends, and results for Twitter. As you can see by the screenshot, you could easily use this for a live event or conference and throw this up on the big screen to see results come streaming in. No refreshing necessary!

You can minimize the left and right sidebars or even scroll down a tad to get rid of them “completely” from the viewing panel. Not a bad (and much cheaper) alternative!

But, the biggest reason why you may hesitate to use this service is because is has no moderation capabilities, one of the crucial elements that may be necessary for a Q/A type session.

I can see some definite uses for it though, and it may be the thing that will work for your specific event.