Streamreaders just keep getting better and better. A new version of TweetDeck is rolling out today with some major improvements, including support for Lists, Retweets, maps for geo-tagged messages, and LinkedIn streams. TweetDeck has already been downloaded more than 10 million times, and its active user base is in the low millions so this is a significant update.
As soon as Twitter launched Lists (the ability to create and follow groups) as a regular feature, all the stream readers rushed to incorporate it. TweetDeck already let you create Groups in separate columns, and is now replacing that with Twitter Lists. Existing TweetDeck Groups will still work, but from now on when you create a new group it will be via the official List functionality and available for all other Twitter users to see if you choose to make it public. You can also export your old groups as a List.
TweetDeck, however, goes beyond simply letting you add Lists as columns. You can edit lists in a pop-up lightbox, weeding out people from other people’s lists or using existing lists as the basis for entirely new ones. There is even a suggested users feature which suggests people to add to a list you are creating based on the existing members of the list you are starting with, as well as the name and the description. This is a first step towards creating dynamic lists.
The one issue TweetDeck (and all desktop Twitter clients) will run into with lists is that they eat up the allotted API calls for each client. Since there are so many users in each list, sometimes hundreds, and lists update with each of their Tweets, it goes through the allowed number of updates pretty quickly. Web-based stream readers such as Seesmic Web don’t run into this issue because they are all centralized on one server rather than making millions of separate API calls from each downloaded client (Seesmic’s desktop apps,however, currently do run into the issue).
TweetDeck handles Retweets really nicely as well. There’s been some confusion about how Twitter handles Retweets because people you don’t know all of a sudden appear in your main Twitter stream. TweetDeck alleviates this confusion by showing two small, overlapping avatars of both the person being retweeted and of the person doing the retweeting. It also lets you choose whether you want to retweet the new way or the old way, by editing first and then retweeting.
For all the Tweets that now have geolocation enabled, TweetDeck shows a small red drop at the bottom. When you click on it, a Yahoo map comes up showing the location. This is quickly becoming a standard feature.
Finally, TweetDeck is adding LinkedIn streams via LinkedIn’s new APIs. In addition to Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace, you can now have a LinkedIn column as well. One stream reader to rule them all.
Here’s a video showing off some of the new features:
Now I know what tweetdeck’s was talking about over twitter. Great news.
TweetDeck is getting better and better..
Down the line ..many may be signing up for Twitter because of this..
Imagine signing up to Twitter just so you can tweet in 81 different languages! All kinds of awesome… naat.
Tweetdeck is the only reason I use Twitter…
The two together are a powerful combination.
This Lists thing, though… not ready yet, with the API limitations. Tweetdeck’s Groups are better, whilever there is an API limit.
I just wanted to give TechCrunch my condolences for your all’s loss. (seriously)
:/ That comment was meant for the CrurchPad article…
does it run on Linux?
adobe air
It’s still fugly
it also does not as work as well as the hype here would suggest. i suspect nepotism.
Not fugly if you make it purple.
There’s no way I’m installing Adobe Air to use this.
that’s the way I feel about silverlight
Cool. Gotta try it now.
Another update.
At this rate, every time I open Tweetdeck over the next few months, it’ll inform me of another update to download. I think they should concentrate on fixing the memory hogging bug that plagues these Adobe Air apps.
If they wanted to stay a leader among the streamreaders, they had to post this update. Twitter just released the new list and retweet functionality.
This is Adobe’s problem and not Tweetdeck’s per se.
Take it up with Adobe.
@Anthony you should give the AIR 2 beta a try. We made a lot of tweaks to performance and memory usage. Most of the users I talk to say it makes a big difference in the AIR apps they use.
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/air2/
=Ryan
ryan@adobe.com
Sweet, I’ll be upgrading today. The intergration to twitters list is huge.
@ferodynamics, @pienazupa – complain much?
Now the wait for the iphone version to be updated
Hmm… no update notification so far. Does it matter than I’m using Air v2 beta?
“There’s been some confusion about how Twitter handles Retweets because people you don’t know all of a sudden appear in your main Twitter stream.”
99 % of the time people I don’t know appear in my Twitter stream.
The RT functionality is very nice. I’ve been using the Google Gears script that showed the double avatar images on the Twitter homepage. It works just like that.
The option to use either RT version is very nice and as expected.
Another major problem with the list functionality is similar to the New Followers column.
When you mark tweets as read in a column, then clear them out (scissor icon in a column), they should stay gone. They don’t. So every time you clear a column, it just repopulates at the next update interval.
With Tweetdeck groups columns, once you clear them, they go away. They don’t just come back 2-3 minutes later. They do this with the List columns. It pretty much makes them useless.
Unless I am doing something wrong, I’m keeping my old group columns up instead of using the lists. They just aren’t usable to me yet.
Damn, so many cool new things that I should better wait until I go back home to play with them all!!
And another example that Lists aren’t such a great feature (to use a euphemism)… as well as Retweets… when will Twitter start making features that really make sense??
Btw, it sounds bizarre that TweetDeck uses Yahoo map instead of Google map, but there may be some technical reasons I ignore.
Anyway, congrats to Ian and his team and they well deserve the final line… ” One stream reader to rule them all.”
All twitter has to do is turn on URL Shortener and all these 3 party sites will go down the gutter. With the new Retweet, you already see people are starting to use Twitter website more. Few more months every one will start using twitter website like crazy especially those who were using 3 party apps before.
Curious why they went with Yahoo! maps rather than google. Wonder if this will have any impact on share of map traffic.
It’s nice they added the geo-coded maps, but how do I add geo-coding to my tweets so they have a map?
Go to your Twitter Settings and check “Enable geotagging” on the Account tab.
New tweetdeck is simply awsome
While getting a map of a single tweet may be useful in some cases, its real effect will be in increasing awareness of the fact that now Twitter has the ability to encode location information in every tweet.
We’re running an experimental map that shows ALL the tweets that we can find with a geocode.
http://www.planeteye.com/maps?set=map.4179&ll=42.8760,-91.1426&z=4&sh=true
The map feeds from the Twitter Stream API which means that you’ll see things change as you move around. The volume of geocoded tweets has dramatically increased over the last couple of days. I can only assume with more clients embracing the geolocation API we’ll continue to see an increasing volume of tweets on the map.
Great… now if it just wasn’t so god damn ugly!
Loic, I’ve had enough of your gloating and self-serving Tweets. Wake up and realize you have absolutely no competitive advantage. Today it’s Seesmic, tomorrow it’s Tweetdeck or Tweetie. I, for one, am backing anyone but Seesmic. I like the fact that Tweetdeck and Tweetie just get the job done without pimping themselves to the world like Loic does. Adieu, mon ami.
Me too! How dare he market his company product? What is he thinking?
This is all well/good, but it still infuriates me that email sync doesn’t work. Every time I attempt to sync accounts between the desktop client and the iPhone client, the desktop client tells me it can’t verify my account, credentials are wrong (they’re NOT, I still have the confirmation email from TD), or servers are busy, try later.
Even tried setting up all new accounts. Still doesn’t work .
This newest version still doesn’t fix this.
I can’t wait for seesmic to update, I don’t even open up tweetdeck anymore
Who the hell still uses Twitter?
geezer@aol.com ?
This update’s a bit buggy.
“Bad Gateway, Twitter is down.”
For *Tweetdeck* it is… (eyeroll)