TweetDeck Launches #NewTwitter Rival

After the success of its Chrome web app, TweetDeck is launching a full-fledged web app, which should pose major competition to both Twitter and Seesmic. According to a blog post, TweetDeck Web is built on the same core as Chrome TweetDeck and features a similar UI and product features. Unfortunately, TweetDeck Web does not include Twitter streaming.

The reason why TweetDeck, which makes a massively popular desktop Twitter client, is making a Web version is because it will be browser agnostic. TweetDeck will be asking for select users who have whitelisted accounts to test the browser-based app, specifically targeting Chrome, Firefox 3.6, Firefox 4 and Safari, with support for Opera and Internet Explorer 9 being added soon.

The twist to all of this is that TweetDeck was just acquired by Twitter client powerhouse UberMedia, which had some unfortunate run-ins with Twitter over TOS violations. All is well for now, but recently Twitter made some aggressive comments about the vision of their ecosystem.

Basically, third-parties shouldn’t be creating straight-up Twitter clients any further. Of course, this sleek new web version of TweetDeck will no doubt compete with Twitter’s new web client so it should be interesting to see how things shake out. Because TweetDeck Web is still private, it’s hard to tell how popular it will be. But if the Chrome extension’s popularity is a predictor of the new client’s success, TweetDeck web could be a hit.