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In its current state, Twitter is a strange mix of real-time features like search and the slow polling mechanism that desktop clients use to grab new messages. As Twitter puts a limit on how many times per hour a client can check for updates, most of the conversations on Twitter are slow and arduous. When Seesmic released its new desktop and web applications last week, however, the company also mentioned that its applications would soon be able to update Twitter streams in real time, including @replies and direct messages. While the Seesmic team was tight-lipped about how exactly they are going to do this (maybe by tapping into Twitter's Streaming API?), we can't help but wonder how this will change the dynamics on the service.

Today, Seesmic, the developers of one of the most popular Twitter clients, unveiled a web-based version of Seesmic, as well as a new version of the Seesmic desktop. The web-based version of Seesmic basically recreates most of the features that are currently available in the desktop application. A few features like groups and support for multiple accounts are currently missing (though they will be added soon), but the web app also includes a number of features the desktop client doesn't currently have, including a specialized view for direct messages and syncing persistent searches with a user's Twitter profile. Among other things, the new version of the desktop app now sports a Twhirl-like single-column view, the ability to hide the sidebar, and it uses less memory and CPU power.