If you’re a Twitter user, you really owe it to yourself to install TweetDeck. It’s an Adobe Air application that provides a Twitter account display with amazing organization and functionality. Seriously, TweetDeck takes your Twitter experience to a whole new level, saving you time while providing enhanced functionality.
The TweetDeck interface provides three columns: the leftmost for running Tweets, the center for replies specifically to your account, and the rightmost for direct messages between your account and other Twitterers. Each column is scrollable, meaning no more clicking Twitter page bottoms to see what you may have missed while you were away.
Mouseover a Twitterer’s image, and a four-button interface pops up to let you reply, retweet, direct-message, or favorite the person. Buttons atop the page let you spawn a new message, search Twitter, check TwitScoop, and various other things. And the message-composition box has another box below it for pasting URLs to be shortened by your choice of 13 URL-shortening services. There’s also a TwitPic and TweetShrink button up there. Convinced yet?
The clincher for me was that replies column in the middle. Using the Twitter.com interface in my browser, I’d often miss replies people sent me in the general traffic scrolling messages down the page. Not any longer. They’re displayed right there, separate from the other traffic.
Once I got to using TweetDeck, however, all the other features became so handy I can’t imagine what I’d do without it now. I only wish I could manage more than one account from the interface. (That’s a suggestion on the books at the Web site, so here’s hoping…)