So which desktop Twitter client is better? I could write everything that Mashable.com wrote yesterday or I could copy and paste what they wrote and give them credit. Let's just give them credit. Here is the post: (Thank you Mashable for doing a great job. If you don't read this site on a regular basis then you should. It really does rock.)
At the rate that TweetDeck (
) and Twhirl () (which as you might know just morphed into Seesmic Desktop yesterday) are iterating, it’s hard to keep up with which client should be crowned the king of the desktop for Twitter (
). In round one of our head-to-head, Twhirl emerged the victor, but Twhirl is no longer Twhirl, and TweetDeck has since blossomed into a full-featured, multi-purpose application with much improved performance. To the victor go the spoils, but who’s at the head of the class right now? Let’s take a closer look and find out.
User Interface Updates
Now that Seesmic Desktop supports multiple columns, we fear they may be in danger of over complicating the once super simple, yet powerful, UI. Where Seesmic’s client trips over itself a bit is with the all-powerful home column, which appears to be designed to replicate the experience of Twhirl.
Almost every Twitter-related activity occurs within the home column, until you detach a view into a separate column. Thankfully you can detach as many columns as need be (with TweetDeck you’re limited to 10), delete them just as easily, and drag-and-drop them to rearrange their order.
Seesmic Desktop’s left-hand side bar is a big improvement from Twhirl’s bottom navigation options, and enables you to quickly toggle between views of the Home column to see replies, private messages, sent messages (TweetDeck still doesn’t have a simple way to view your own tweets), accounts, userlists, and saved searches. We’re not sure why, but userlists and searches with their own column can’t be viewed in the Home column. It’s an oddity that will likely get fixed with time.
Another UI improvement is the search bar in the bottom left-hand corner. Type whatever you want to quickly search Twitter. Results are displayed in a new column. Since the query appears in the left-hand navigation bar, you can easily return to the column and your search, even when you go overboard on the number of columns you create.
On the flip side, TweetDeck’s UI remains unchanged. You can still have a single column for a very singular experience, or expand to multiple columns. Columns are consistent in size, shape, and function, but not as easy to find when you near column capacity — think lots of scrolling left and right.
For Twitter-only columns, from left to right, users can move a column left, filter tweets in a column, mark all tweets as seen, clear viewed tweets, clear all tweets in a column, or move the column right.
TweetDeck users can also look to the top right hand corner to open the tweet box, or add a column for all friends, replies, direct messages, favorites, a new group, search, Twitscoop, 12seconds, StockTwits, and Facebook ().
Both TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop use Twitter avatars to house four icons you can interact with to either send a reply or DM, retweet, or perform more actions. So it’s essentially the same experience for that function, though TweetDeck does provide a few more bells and whistles if you click “other actions.”
Believe it or not, the bottom line is that TweetDeck’s UI is currently the simpler of the two.
Feature Frenzy
If you need to manage multiple Twitter accounts, then you can stop the comparison the now. TweetDeck can’t help you in that department. Seesmic Desktop has no built in limitations when it comes to the number of accounts you can add, nor does it duplicate tweets common to multiple accounts.
However if tweet-related features are tantamount, then TweetDeck should be your final destination. Sure you can follow new tweeps via Seesmic Desktop, but it’s not obvious (look for the “+”), and there’s no confirmation of the follow at the moment. With TweetDeck, you can do a boat load of tweet and user-specific actions. Clicking the gears icon gives you follow, unfollow, profile, search, and group options, plus the ability to favorite tweets, email a tweet, translate, mark as read, or delete.
Oh and if you want Facebook, TwitStock, 12seconds, and TwitScoop integrated into your desktop experience, then stay with TweetDeck. Seesmic Desktop is Twitter-only, but only for the immediate future.
Both TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop support Digg URLs and custom groups, so neither of those features should be deal breakers for you on either app. Seesmic Desktop’s groups are called userlists and are available via the left-hand side bar for quick reference. TweetDeck’s groups, however, will appeal to you more if you need to bulk add members to them.
In the photo department, you’ll likely ooh and ahh at what you can do with Seesmic Desktop. Want to drag-and-drop a photo instead of upload one? No problem. Would you rather just take a snap shot using your webcam? You can do that too. TweetDeck just does TwitPic ().
We’re really torn when it comes to features, but pretty confident that they’re dissimilar enough to help you make a choice that suits your needs best.
TweetDeck Is The Winner, But For How Long?
Personal preferences aside (I need multiple accounts and unlimited columns so I’ve switched to Seesmic Desktop semi-permanently), we have a feeling that just more than half of you (we’ve been watching tweets and comments) will be more satisfied with TweetDeck over Seesmic Desktop for the time being.
Meanwhile, both competitors will continue to innovate and imitate at the top of the desktop client food chain. Our suspicions, based on what we know about the product plans, are that eventually Seesmic Desktop may have the upper hand on its chief competitor as it refines the user experience and builds in promised features like Facebook and Seesmic () integration, support for multiple photo sites, additional URL shorteners, and quicker ways to add people to userlists.
(End of Article)
Here is the major thing I want though from one or the other. I want to be able to sync across multiple computers. I would love to set up my Tweetdeck once and it be the same on every computer I use or that could be said of Seesmic Desktop as well.
I know that Peoplebrowsr.com will do the sync deal because it is online but the interface is not close to either Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop. Peoplebrowsr at this point is clunky and ugly.
So please I am asking for a Twitter client that has all of the best funcitons and then some. Those include:
1. Multiple Accounts
2. Saved searches
3. Syncing across platforms and computers
4. Facebook intergration with reply to Facebook Status in Twitter Client
5. Picture management more than just Twitpic
6. 12seconds video
7. Set up and publish Twitter experiences for others/clients with search terms and followings
8. More than 10 columns
9. Better performance and less memory usage
10. Preview of shortlinks and pictures
There you have it. This is my wishlist. What would yours be?
comments
1 Response to "Tech Thursday: Tweetdeck vs Seesmic Desktop"Great post. I was getting ready to write a post about TweetDeck's improvement, but no need.
I love that TweetDeck pulls in Facebook's status update, but I agree with you, the only thing missing is the ability to reply to other people's facebook status updates or even see other people's comments to my status updates. Seriously, why do I have to navigate to Facebook to see this stuff?
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