Social stream aggregator TweetDeck realizes full well that there’s a lot of opportunity for growth in the mobile area, and that making apps for iPhone, iPad and (soon) Android only is not going to cut it if it wants to be a dominant player there.
Hence, the startup has “embarked on a secret mission” to develop a full-fledged mobile Web client to cater to people with browser-equipped BlackBerry, Palm, Windows Mobile, Symbian and other devices.
The cross-platform mobile Web client for TweetDeck will benefit from cheaper and faster Internet access in the years to come, CEO Iain Dodsworth writes, and more powerful and standards-compliant browsers and HTML5 will make for an even greater opportunity.
Dodsworth also mentions that battery life is an issue on all mobile devices, particularly on older platforms. With TweetDeck Mobile Web, which is what the product will likely be called, an app running in the background draining your phone’s juice stops being a problem – if it ever was one.
The startup makes it clear that it will not stop developing new features for its existing and future dedicated mobile clients, commenting that “the Android app is coming very soon and the iPhone and iPad apps will continue to be improved moving forward”.
TweetDeck says that by focusing its efforts on a single Web client, it can provide the attention and resources to “really make the experience shine”. The startup plans to create style sheets and Javascript dedicated to each platform, and promises it will work well on slimmed down devices. A TweetDeck for everyone, if you will.
A timing for launch wasn’t provided, but TweetDeck says they’ve been developing the product for months, and that testing is about to begin (you can sign up here).
The company has started by optimizing TweetDeck Mobile Web for BlackBerry devices, and says that it will be looking at what the community says to see which platforms it should be polishing next.
One of the competitors it will be facing a lot of heat from is … Twitter, which also boasts a fairly powerful mobile Web client. It’s worth pointing out that TweetDeck supports streams for other services as well, and will be adding some new ones with the TweetDeck sync & sign-up services layered on top in the near future.
It’s unclear if that other rival, Seesmic, has similar plans.
TweetDeck is a Twitter client for desktop, web, and mobile devices. TweetDeck was originally an Adobe Air desktop application, designed with a unique columned user interface. Its goal was to be a realtime application that allowed users to monitor that information in a single concise view. TweetDeck integrated services from Twitter, Twitscoop, 12seconds, Stocktwits and Facebook. In 2011, Twitter acquired TweetDeck and rebuilt the application in HTML5.
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