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Is Seesmic Desktop Tweetdeck in sheep’s clothing?

Unleashed on Tuesday, the latest product launch by video-blogging site Seesmic included a new desktop application to make it easier for people to update & communicate with their friends and community on Twitter. Introducing Seesmic Desktop, this new software has all the trimmings of another major Twitter application powerhouse, Tweetdeck. There are many other Twitter applications that have come across the scene over the past couple of years but only two have really been quite popular: Tweetdeck being one of them and Twhirl being the other. It should be said, however, that Seesmic owns Twhirl and Seesmic Desktop is the company’s attempt to create something more stable and useful that will incorporate Twhirl into the Seesmic family.

But what will happen to Twhirl?

But if you use Twhirl, you might be asking what will happen in the future once Seesmic Desktop officially launches to the world? During the preview event, Seesmic founder Loic Le Meur stated that they intend to do away with the Twhirl brand because “it’s hard for people to pronounce and spell and we don’t even have the .com domain!”, he joked. Seriously though, Le Meur explained that with about 15 products they’re managing, it’s better to have it folded under. But that won’t be for a while as they’re still working on perfecting the Seesmic Desktop platform. Twhirl will not be going anywhere for a while.

What’s good & bad about Seesmic Desktop?

In order for you to install Seesmic Desktop, you first need to be a part of what Le Meur calls “Team Seesmic“. It’s free to register & you’ll get an email with the address to download the application. One thing to note is that, like Tweetdeck, you will need to have Adobe AIR installed on your computer – which you will be prompted to install once you begin the Seesmic Desktop installation process.

Once you’ve installed it, you’ll notice that it closely resembles Tweetdeck but also has that Apple window look to it – almost like it was designed entirely on an Apple computer. Le Meur did say that themes would be coming in later iterations & was hoping for community support to help develop themes, but right now they are limited in what they have – I guess it’s all more functionality over form, but while I think the functionality looks good, I’d appreciate more care over the design before even getting it to beta stage.

Here’s what I’m thinking is good about Seesmic Desktop:

- Does not appear to be resource heavy like Tweetdeck.
- Allows you to manage multiple Twitter accounts simultaneously – good for businesses with more than one twitter handle.
- Ability to sort friends/followers into individual userlists and it looks pretty organized.
- You can save photos/images to TwitPic. Simply find a file on your computer or take one with your web cam and it’ll upload it to TwitPic with a URL to tweet out.

What I’m not to excited about on Seesmic Desktop:

- The organization of tweets isn’t as clear & crisp as you would see on Tweetdeck.
- While you can have multiple Twitter accounts on Seesmic Desktop, you need to be careful about which Twitter handle you’re tweeting from because there’s a drop-down menu that you’d have to manage. I’m sure that you’ve had direct messages that accidentally got tweeted to the public, right? Think about this being a little bit along the same lines.
- They currently only support a few URL shorteners – but Loic Le Meur did tell me that they will be supporting all of them in the future.
- A generic “replies” and “direct message” column that will have all the replies and/or direct messages regardless of how many Twitter handles you have on the site.
- Doesn’t appear to be optimized for all monitor sizes so you might encounter some usability issues.
- Can’t seem to find any status update on how much of the Twitter API I’m using per hour. It seems to be a guesstimate until Twitter says “STOP!”.

Currently Seesmic Desktop only services Twitter, but Le Meur said that they will work on the functionality and serving other web applications. I think that Seesmic Desktop is a good application to have if you think that Tweetdeck is too clunky. Seesmic Desktop is simplistic right now but will only grow from there. While I wait, I think I may stick with it and see what updates happen. But if I want more functionality and greater reach now, then I may go back to Tweetdeck. Because that’s what I’m seeing here…Seesmic Desktop is basically Tweetdeck in its infancy. Will Seesmic ever outdo Tweetdeck and find a way to separate itself from its competitor? I’m guessing that if they want greater adoption of Seesmic Desktop, then they need to find one quick.

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