tweetdeck vs. new twhirl

this is a subjective evaluation based on what’s important to me, and how i use twitter.

the short version for those short on time or attention span

the new twhirl is a fantastic improvement but the winner is still tweetdeck because it has groups. as soon as twhirl gets groups, i will switch. at the time of writing twhirl version 0.8.8f was released and tweetdeck 0.21

if you have a bit more time or attention…

background

i started using twitter some time back as a complement to my blogging. there was a vast pool of interesting thoughts flying around in the twittersphere that were useful to draw inspiration from. i was still working as a systems architect at the time and did not need to be on twitter the whole day.

when i started working as a

full-time flack

i started to use twitter more extensively because it helped me get a feel for what the big issues were and to tune in to any issues my client’s customers were having. i’ve also found that many of the journos i engage with also used twitter so the use of twitter full time became a logical progression.

the twitter website

is fine if you are an occasional user or don’t follow more than 10 or maybe 20 people, but is impossible to use meaningfully if you follow more than than that. i’m following 462 at the time of writing and it’s hard to keep abreast of the conversations from the website. it would not be a viable work tool if i had to use the website! what i found especially difficult was that i could not be responsive enough to @replies and direct messages because there is no notification from the website when you get them.

so i started hunting around for alternatives and

found twhirl

i loved the clean interface and the fact that you get a nice little pop up telling you when you get an @reply and direct messages. of course as my twitter usage increased yet again with twhirl, i found that i missed important work related conversations during the day because of an interesting phenomenon:

different people are important at different times of day

so between 09:00 to 18:00 work related people were important:

• clients;
• journos and
• colleagues.

whereas in the evenings it was more the:

• family;
• friends and
• “interesting people”. which meant that i needed to be able to tune into these groups separately.
  

  enter tweetdeck

  whose biggest selling point for me is groups. i can add the people i’m following into different groups which means i can get a separate column for each group. very useful, i can tune into the different groups depending on what is important at the time and i am not simply at the mercy of a continuous tweet stream.

  the problem with tweetdeck is

  it gives you one massive screen that you have to scroll across all the time. this is a pain (pardon the pun).

  so i tried twhirl 0.8.8f

  which was announced by seesmic ceo, @loic yesterday. some of the useful stuff for me are:

• keyword tracking
• multiple movable panes and
• tracking @replies where my name appears anywhere within the message (incidentally tweetdeck has this feature).

which is all very good for me especially keyword tracking.

but it still doesn’t have groups

so i will have to stay with tweetdeck which is not the pleasure to use that twhirl is.

the race is on, will twhirl get groups first or tweetdeck get movable panes?