Tweetdeck is the new black

Somehow Tweetdeck is the new black in twitter. So to speak. Everyone seems to use it lately. According to one source 11% of tweets are sent by it already. If already is a word which can be used on a service less than 2 years old.

Enough incentive for me to try it out as well, after all the web-interface of twitter buggered me from the start.

Not that there was anything really wrong with it, but I am not someone who likes to have the same tab open all the time just to check for updates and be able to post. This actually took me off twitter the first time I tried it very quickly.

What can I say? I like comfort!

Tweetdeck on the other hand is exactly what I was looking for in this respect; actually even a bit more: It has the ability to post new tweets, the ability to autoupdate in certain intervals, and it actually divides all the tweets I receive in general ones, replies, and direct messages. It even has a nice profile view and an integrated search. And all that presented in a nice and tidy way (which coincidentally fits perfect to the theme I use).

The interface is rather comfortable and intuitive, it is a pleasure to write and send tweets. Hitting enter actually sends the tweet instead of just pushing the cursor to another line. That was something I never understood in the web interface. I think I will stay with this app for a while.

So, anything bad about it?
Well yes, there are two (minor) things actually… For one one is still dependent on a browser tget to know new people to follow or to check out someones twitter-page. Also Tweetdeck is dependent on the Adobe Air runtime library, which only recently even got a finished version for Linux and is a bit (only a slight bit though) nasty to install. Nothing to worry about for experienced users, but new ones might see a problem with that. It also has the slight problem of actually having to install Adobe Air, which might not be the most perfect way of keeping the computer safe from hackers. On the other hand the runtime is, similar to Java, a perfect way of creating programs for different operating systems.

Nevertheless Tweetdeck is what other clients for Linux, like Twitux or gtwitter try to be. I tried both of them as well, but somehow I prefer Tweetdeck.
Something which might be of interest though may be a way to actually use other micro-blogging services (like identi.ca) as well. This would make this program into something like a swiss army knife of micro-blogging tools.

Links: Tweetdeck Beta, Adobe Air Runtime