Thoughts on tweetdeck

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I’ve been on twitter and facebook for quite a long time now – about 3 years for both. Until recently, I’d been using twhirl to keep up with my twitter and friendfeed accounts. But recently I began using tweetdeck after finding out the newest version allows facebook status updates.

And since I tend to check facebook 3-4 times a day, I thought it would be worth it to have an app for it too. That lead me to tweetdeck and thinking I’d have one application for all three.

But then I found out tweetdeck doesn’t do friendfeed. I think it should.

I use a browser with tabs (safari or flock) but sometimes it’s very annoying leaving tabs open all the time. However, I do like to minimize the amount of programs I have running so I often have a bazillion tabs open. Finding a program that can do friendfeed as well as twitter and facebook would be very beneficial.

So far, I do like tweetdeck and it does have advantages over the both twitterific (which I really loved) and twhirl (which has cool features I came to like tremendously) but it is lacking in a few abilities.

The feature that is most useful is the multi column view. I hesitated even using tweetdeck initially because of the multi column view – I thought it would be too cluttered. Once I began playing with it, though, I found that being able to view everything in this way is quick and easy. Sometimes my direct messages and replies would get lost because I follow so many people. The multi column view lets me see all of that without missing a beat. Lovely!

I also like that the colors can be changed. That was one of the features I liked most about twhirl and one of the features I disliked most about twitterific – it had one color option.

Now, if they would add the ability to comment on facebook statuses as well as add photos to your facebook profile and add friendfeed to the mix, tweetdeck would never leave my desktop. Another feature I would really love is a different tone notice for direct messages and replies, like twhirl offers. Being able to change the default notice tones – like twitterific – would be great too.

I suspect a few of these things are on other users wish lists as well and with any luck, they’ll be implemented at some point in the near future.

I think I’ll have more to add as I continue to use tweetdeck. I might find additional features I would like to have or find other features that create other functions I haven’t thought of. It remains to be seen at this point but as of now, tweetdeck is very cool, indeed and I likely will be using it for some time.

If you’re on any of these social media sites, what platform do you use and why? And if you use tweetdeck, do you have tips to share?

In the arena,

“Imagination is more important than knowledge, for knowledge is limited while imagination embraces the entire world.” ~Albert Einstein

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business – just as if it were her own.

Currently playing in iTunes: Wild Boys by Duran Duran
Currently playing in iTunes: Piece of my Heart by Sammy Hagar