Foremost among features, it now has multi-window support and a new primary window design that makes it easier to create a tweet. One of the initial complaints of Twitter for Mac was that it had no compose-tweet box in the main window. A new button in the bottom left of the deck fixes that.

If the first version of Twitter for Mac was like the iPad app, this version is a virtual clone. The interfaces are almost exactly the same. This can be seen in the new direct message plain of the Mac client, which updates new tweets in a conversation at the bottom of the app as opposed to the top and are bubbles, reminiscent of Blackberry Messenger. The new user profile design is simple and slides over in a column when you click on the Twitter picture of a user in your stream.

New features included are also username and hashtag autocomplete, which can be useful when tweeting from a live event, a developer console with links to the API, and an improved display of t.co short links.

There is also a new window design which brings an action bar to the top of the app, making it easier to move the window across the screen and show tabs of where you have navigated from the main window.

Overall it is a solid update to what was already a good product. Will it make me give up using TweetDeck for 95% of my Twitter purposes? Probably not. The client is still a self-contained bar, unlike a full desktop application with multiple visible columns. Now that Twitter owns TweetDeck, it will be interesting to see if the two applications ever merge or if Twitter will allow them to be autonomous units in its empire.

While soccer (or football, for our European readers) might not be your thing, it is interesting to see how many TV networks have now made Twitter a part of their daily routine.

Some of Twitter's popularity in the TV world is obviously due to the novelty factor of Twitter, but Twitter does provide TV channels with an easy way to create a backchannel for their programs. CNN and other 24-hour cable news channels also regularly use Twitter (and Facebook). For example as a backchannel during live programming. Reading tweets is also a cheap way to fill airtime.

In addition, there is the now infamous Twitter TV show  that is not made by Twitter or even about Twitter (the company).

As our own Sarah Perez reported earlier this year, Verizon is also looking into incorporating a Twitter widget into its FiOS TV interface. For now, the FiOS interface still looks a bit clunky, and writing tweets doesn't look like an option given the lack of a keyboard, but it would be cool to see a constant stream of tweets about a specific show stream by on your TV, especially during live events.

Everyone raves about Tweetdeck's allowing users to create groups, which nicely sorts much of the information available in a collection of streams from followers. However, there are features beyond groups that could be useful for social noise reduction. Mixero has added filtering and channel creation to the current mix of available Twitter tools with interesting results.

Basic Functions and UI

Groups

All a group's tweets are seen as a collective stream. New updates from members are in numbered, amber bubbles, and any DMs from members of that group appear as red numbered bubbles by the group's icon in the Active List.

Active Lists

Filtering

As a side note, it would be nice to see related words show up, as well. I see one friend tweeting "live band," "piano," "drums." But if I searched his stream for "music," no results are returned.

Channels

Note to the creators: It would be especially magical if I could get SMS or email updates with customized settings for each channel/group. My LA Peeps group updates can wait for the web, but the Shenanigans Pics channel? That needs to go straight to my mobile, STAT.

So, a channel can act as a finely tuned updater, a buzz-o-meter, a keyword monitor, a news aggregator - the limits here are your imagination and Mixero's search capabilities.

Verdict

UPDATE: We've been given a limited but large number of beta invite codes. Email jolie@readwriteweb.com if you'd like one!

UPDATE ON THE LAST UPDATE: We're fresh out! We had 50 invitation codes, and they went like hotcakes. However, we do encourage you to contact the creators in case they have room left for beta testers, and definitely stay tuned for the public release!

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.

The latest version of TweetDeck has become somewhat infamous for how much memory it often eats up after a few hours of continuous usage. Nambu, on the other hand, keeps a relatively low footprint. Just like TweetDeck, Nambu features the ability to create groups (which is really the only way to keep up if you follow a large number of users) and separate columns for specific searches.

Nambu also features a number of other features that set it apart from its competitors. You can, for example, translate any tweet into English with a simple keyboard shortcut, and you can easily add users to a group from a very straightforward right-click menu. Nambu can also auto-complete the names of users you follow when you write a new message. For real power-users, Nambu also supports more than one Twitter account, and for URL-shortening, it currently defaults to tr.im, which was developed by the Nambu team.

Unlike TweetDeck, however, Nambu doesn't feature integration with a lot of third-party applications like StockTwits, and it doesn't support Facebook yet. Looking forward, however, the team plans to enable support for FriendFeed, identi.ca, and Ping.fm in the near future.

Three Views

While Nambu most closely resembles TweetDeck, the application also features two other views as well. The first resembles a traditional, one-column Twitter client like Twhirl, while the second looks a lot like the interface for EventBox, which we reviewed last week, and which sports a sidebar with all your groups and persistent searches.

Twitter Threads

One of the most interesting features of Nambu is that it automatically organizes your conversations into threads. It will also do this for conversations that you don't participate in, but you have to be subscribed to both sides of the conversation.

Still in Beta

Of course, Nambu is still in its early beta phase, so you can expect things to break now and then. The development team, however, is issuing updates regularly and development is clearly moving ahead swiftly. There are obviously still some bugs in the application, and the latest update, for example, seems to take up more memory than the previous release.

Nambu also offers an iPhone application, and while it's a decent enough mobile Twitter client, we would recommend other options like Twitfone or Tweetie over Nambu on the iPhone platform.

On the Mac desktop, few applications can currently rival Nambu's feature set, so if you already like TweetDeck, and if you are on a Mac, then Nambu is definitely worth a try.