If you’ve caught the Twitter bug then you already know all about Twitter. It’s a short messaging service where users send up to 140 character messages telling their friends – and the world – what it is they’re doing.
The reason that Twitter has caught on so quickly is that it’s simple to use, free, and many celebrities and public figures have started to recognize the public relations value of sending out quick promo messages.
To use Twitter you can sign into their web site here. This works pretty well generally but you are limited in a lot of ways by the web interface. For example you cannot easily paste links, photos or search for keywords that people are Twittering about.
In order to do some of the more advanced things such as search and paste photos you need to use a standalone Twitter client. The two most popular ones are Tweetdeck and Twhirl.
Both of these programs automate the sending of receiving of Twitter messages (called tweets). They add features such as automatically shortening links you post within messages, supporting multiple Twitter accounts, saved searches, and real time updates.
Just last night Seesmic (who is the publisher of Twhirl) released a Seesmic Desktop client which expands upon their Twhirl program in several ways.
Seesmic Desktop (shown above) – Visit Seesmic for more information and download link
What’s interesting about Seesmic Desktop is the interface is much cleaner and easier to read than their similar Twhirl product. You also can create multiple windows that expand off the right side of the screen (very similar to how Tweetdeck works). You can just as easily remove those extra screens if you prefer working in a narrow view as the screen above shows.
What’s missing?
There’s presently no support for trending twitter topics and I’ve had trouble copying URLs into the message bar and having the program auto-shorten them for me. Integration to Facebook is a feature that is missing but promised for a future release. Seesmic’s Twhirl product includes integration to Friendfeed while this client does not — and it seems such integration may never be included
Seesmic Desktop runs on Adobe Air which means you can be either a MAC or PC and runs this program with the exact same feature set.
Link: Seesmic Desktop
