There's a lot of ways to update your Twitter status / browse friends without going on their website (which is sometimes really slow !). You can also simply use curl in bash.
I choosed wd, to make it work through irssi.
In irssi type:
/alias twit /exec wd $*
/save
Then you can use
/twit
/twit myfriend
to see your friends status (no arg = all friends, arg = one friend), or
/twit -sv my new status
to update yours .