Facebook Pages

Overall, the focus in this new version is clearly on enhancing Seesmic's Facebook functionality. While most users probably don't administer Facebook pages, the ability to see select Facebook Pages in Seesmic turns out to be quite useful. From within those columns, you can post comments and like posts. This new feature now also makes it easier for users to cross-post to their Twitter accounts, Facebook profiles, and Facebook Pages.

Twitter Updates: Reply to All, Favorites

On the Twitter side of Seesmic Desktop, the 'reply to all' feature is probably the most useful new addition. While this isn't a new feature (TweetDeck has had it for a while), it's still quite useful, especially when you want to reply to re-tweeted messages that include more than one username.

In addition, Seemsic Desktop now also features a column for 'favorites.' Favorites remain a relatively under-utilized feature on Twitter, so chances are that not a lot of Seesmic users will actually really use of this feature.

Currently, conversations on Twitter are asynchronous and sluggish. If they happened in real-time, however, Twitter would start to look and feel more like an IM client. Even on FriendFeed, which was once seen as a possible Twitter challenger but which never quite got any mainstream traction, conversations now happen in real time. While Twitter is often mentioned as a vehicle for real-time conversations, in reality, conversations on Twitter aren't happening in real time at all.

Once Twitter turns into more of a chatroom, both Twitter's website and third-party clients will also have to improve the way they display these conversations. Seesmic's 'message' view looks like a step in the right direction. The Seesmic web app features a TweetDeck-like column-based view of your Twitter streams and searches, but it also separates 'real' conversations that you participate in from the rest of the application. Other desktop apps like Nambu for the Mac feature rudimentary support for displaying conversation threads, but most clients currently don't do a very good job at highlighting conversations and mostly look at Twitter as a broadcast medium.

Once our streams really start moving on Twitter, we will also need better ways to filter and manage our subscriptions (including better spam filters). Right now, scanning a list of updates is easy, and most clients support search and the ability to create groups, but maybe automatic filtering based on the kind of messages we pay attention to will also help us to manage the information stream.

What Do You Think?

We will have to see how all of this will play out in the next few months once Seesmic (and others, we assume) will release their updated clients, but we think that this could potentially take Twitter into a completely new direction.

Maybe the niftiest feature of the Seesmic web app is its new messages view. Here, you can overview of all your private DM's, which are then displayed like IM conversations. If you open up multiple conversations, they will appear in separate columns, making it easy to keep track of more than one discussion at a time. For now, this view only works for direct messages, but it would also be great if Seesmic expanded this for @replies as well.

One feature we really liked, and one that we hope more desktop apps will recreate (including the Seesmic Desktop), is Seesmic's ability to sync persistent searches back and forth with your Twitter profile on Twitter's own site. Whenever you add a search on Twitter, it will appear in Seesmic and vice versa.

There are quite a few other features we like a lot about the Seesmic web app:

• you can shuffle columns around by simply dragging and dropping them
• the one-column, Gmail-style view, which is somewhat reminiscent of similar views in Eventbox and Nambu, should work great for users on netbooks and other devices with limited screen estate
• in-line replies work very well in the Gmail-style view
• every column can be set to show a traditional view of your stream (with avatars etc.) or it can be set to show a Gmail-style, one-column UI view
• when you mouse over a user's avatar, you can easily send them a direct message, follow the user (or unfollow), and bring up a user's profile

There are a few things, though, that are still missing from the app, including support for multiple accounts and groups, for example. Loic Le Meur, Seesmic's founder and CEO, however, told us that support for both of these will arrive soon. As Loic told us, Seesmic plans to launch simple and then iterate very fast after launch.

For now, you are also restricted to using bit.ly as your URL shortener, though we assume that other URL shorteners will become available in the near future as well.

Real-Time Updates Coming Soon

There are currently no settings for managing how often Seesmic polls Twitter but according to Loic, Seesmic's polling automatically adapts to Twitter's API limits for now. In the near future, however, Loic tells us, polling will not be an issue anymore. We are not quite sure how exactly this is going to work, but once we can get away from polling and Twitter's API limits, using Twitter will definitely start to feel more like an IM app than SMS.

Competition for the Web App?

The competition for the Seesmic web app that immediately comes to mind is obviously Peoplebrowsr. Peoplebrowsr, after all, also provides a column-based Twitter client (among many other things). Overall, however, while Peoplebrowsr has more features, it also feels a bit cluttered, while Seesmic's designers have basically recreated the desktop app's layout, which provides a comparably tranquil environment that focuses on the most important features.

Sobees also just released a Silverlight-based Twitter app that runs in the browser just before this post went live. We did not have a chance to try it out yet, but Allen Stern seems to like it, and its built-in anti-spam features look quite useful as well.

What About Seesmic Desktop?

Obviously, the big announcement today is the Seesmic web application, but the Seesmic Desktop also got a major update and is now at version 0.4.

Here are the most important new features:

• single column and multi-column mode: you can now choose between a Twhirl-like, traditional Twitter client view with a single column, and you have the option to detach all columns
• collapse and expand the sidebar: great if you want to save some screen estate
• support for MobyPicture
• better control over the width of columns
• a new search column now appears when you click on a hashtag

There are also a number of smaller updates, but for us, what stood out were the new views, including the more Tweetdeck-like detached column view and the single column view, which makes it easier to keep track of your Twitter feed at the corner of your screen.

No Growth

It's important to note, though, that Seesmic plans to keep its video service running for the time being, but unless we see a major shift in how users perceive 'video conversations,' we have to wonder if this kind of service has any real future, especially given the asynchronous nature of Seesmic in a time where real-time conversations and video streaming, even from mobile devices, are becoming the norm. In his video, Le Meur also notes that other Twitter-based video services aren't growing right now either, though he hopes that video will be ready to grow again at some point in the future.

Service Still Up, But Completely Deemphasized

We definitely have to give Le Meur credit for keeping the community informed, though. Unlike imeem, which is shutting down parts of its service in the next few days, Seesmic is keeping its service up and running, and the team is communicating with the Seesmic community.

Note: tip of the hat to Allen Stern, who first noticed these changes.

This new version comes just in time, as Seesmic, the company behind Twhirl, unveiled its TweetDeck inspired Seesmic Desktop yesterday.

Both TweetDeck and the new Seesmic Desktop were built on top of Adobe AIR, and both feature multi-column views, with the ability to create groups and persistent searches. Both programs, however, also have quite a few features that the other hasn't replicated yet.

The new version of TweetDeck, for example, can now display previews of of TwitPic images, while the new Seesmic client smartly keeps one column on the left side stationary, so that you can always keep an eye on your replies or direct messages, for example. Optionally, TweetDeck can now auto-complete usernames and add hashtags to replies. It now also features support for adding the Digg URL-shortener.

Seesmic also features support for multiple Twitter accounts and it can take a picture from your webcam and post it to TwitPic. Besides its support for Facebook, TweetDeck, on the other hand, has implemented support for more third-party apps like StockTwits, TwitScoop, and video service 12seconds, while the Seesmic Desktop is currently just focused on the basic Twitter experience.

Just a short while ago, making a recommendation for a good desktop Twitter client was easy. For heavy Twitter users who needed multiple columns to group friends and persistent searches, TweetDeck was the way to go. If you just wanted to dip your toes into the Twitter stream, Twhirl was the best choice. Now, however, making these recommendations is a lot harder.

If you want a multi-column Twitter client, both apps have their advantages and disadvantages, but the core Twitter experience on both clients is actually quite comparable. To differentiate themselves from each other, both clients will have to continue to innovate, though, and for us, as consumers, that can never be a bad thing. If you are on a Mac, we also recommend that you give Nambu a try, as it isn't encumbered by some of the limitations of the Adobe AIR platform (our review).

Is there still a market for a simple Twitter client?

With new players like the Mac-only Nambu, as well as other Adobe AIR clients like AlertThingy, the market for Twitter clients is continuously in flux, and it would be preposterous to try to make any predictions about the future of this business. It is important to note, however, that while there is clearly a market for well-designed, multi-column, multi-social network enabled clients, some of these extra features are probably just overkill for a large number of Twitter users. The majority of Twitter users, after all, are still using the web interface to access the service, and a relatively straightforward client like Twhirl is ideally positioned to capture a good slice of this user base - assuming that Seesmic doesn't abandon Twhirl in favor of the Seesmic Desktop.