There’s no one perfect Twitter client yet, but there’s three pretty good cross-platform Twitter clients: TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop and Orsiso. I recorded a ten-minute video review of all three today on my lunch break:
[playlist id=2]
If you’re reading this post in an RSS reader, you can view the Twitter client review video on my site. The clients in the video are:
TweetDeck Review
TweetDeck is a column-oriented client: users organize content in columns. On my machine, I’ve got columns for:
- All Users (which really just means the people I’m following)
- Replies
- A public search for SQLServerPedia (so anytime somebody mentions it, I get an alert. I have a few of these types of search columns.)
- Direct Messages
- Facebook – and that’s where things start to get interesting.
TweetDeck can show your Facebook friends’ statuses in a column, and you can update Facebook from inside TweetDeck. Nifty.
Seesmic Desktop Review
Seesmic Desktop is a newer column-oriented client very similar to TweetDeck. In most ways, it’s pretty similar to TweetDeck. Unfortunately, it’s brand spankin’ new, and it doesn’t have Facebook support.
OrSiSo Review
Orsiso looks totally different because it doesn’t do the column-oriented display format. Instead, it focuses on circles of friends: your inner circle, your 2nd layer circle, 3rd, and 4th. You can use these to separate friends, family, work, play, whatever.
Even better, you can track your friends across Twitter, FaceBook, Flickr, instant messaging, LinkedIn, and more. One client to rule them all, I suppose.
It’s not all roses and chocolate: like the other two apps, it’s built with Adobe Air, which is roughly akin to saying it’s like Java only without the speed. It works on any platform, but it’s deathly slow.
So What’s the Best Twitter Client?
I’m taking a two-pronged approach: I fire up Orsiso in the morning to see what my inner circle was up to overnight. That way I can make sure I didn’t miss any of their updates, no matter what social network it was on. Then I close Orsiso and stick with a more flexible column-based client through the rest of the day to get the search features.
More Articles: How to Pick People to Follow on Twitter
- My Simple Twitter Book – free download for a limited time!
- Top 10 Reasons I’m Not Following You On Twitter – wondering why nobody’s following you back?
- Top 10 Reasons I *AM* Following You – how I pick who gets past my virtual bouncer.
- How to Get More Twitter Followers – if you don’t know me well, make sure you read all the way to the bottom. I tend to be a little subtle. (And sarcastic.)
- Twitter Is What You Make It – Think Twitter sucks? I tell you why it’s your own fault.
I’m surprised Digsby was not mentioned. Not a very sexy UI, but does Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, MSN, AOL, ICQ, GTalk, GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo, IMAP, POP3, makes coffee, cures cancer, end wars, it slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries .. ok I may have stretched it a bit on the last few.
But it can run multiple accts of the same network
One simple reason I don’t use Digsby: I have a Mac. Digsby is Windows-only right now. Otherwise it sounds promising – I really like julienne fries!
Great review. I currently use TweetDeck pretty much by itself and like it a lot. Seesmic looks nice, but I don’t have multiple Twitter accounts so I don’t think it will make me switch. I also use Digsby, but only to combine my chat applications (AIM, Google Talk, Facebook Chat). I wrote about it here:
http://alexpeerenboom.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-own-apps-i-cant-live-without.html
Great review…but I’m having trouble getting my hands on Orsiso. I have used TD and don’t like that you can only access one account at a time. Orsiso and Seesmic sound the most interesting and I’d like to compare them 1sthand side-by-side.
I’ve been using Twhirl a bit, and it’s okay…maybe I’m not over the learning-curve hump with running multiple accounts on it yet, but the separate windows seem to be cumbersome in my taskbar…it’s not as easily accessible as I’d like it to be. My we are demanding in this day and age of convenient programs! lol
I’ve been using Tweedeck, however, today, I did take OrsiSo for test drive & like the fact that you can group your friends. I do wished it had multiple column options. Con: A bit sluggish. On another note, Clove Alpha looks promissing but still on beta, is Clove app. http://vimeo.com/4738577
I’ve just installed Seesmic… on an iMac G5, because I’ve seen a video demo and I have to manage 2 twitter accounts (perhaps 3 in a week…). I’ve read later that AIR platform is slow… but it’s probably the problem to those following/followd by hundreds or thousands of accounts, I don’t know. “slowliness” is due to several factors, including ISP performance…, the number of applications you have open at time… etc, etc. so, let give Seesmic an opportunity… By the way, it seems new release manages Facebook accounts also.
Brent,
Just wanted to thank you for the tutorials, and postings… for a “layman” like me, they’re super-helpful.
Lynn
Hi Brent,
I’m working on a client that is web based – so OS isn’t an issue. Still in beta phase (a lot of features already implemented) just in case your interested you can check it out at http://tweetminer.net
I’m very keen to get feature requests so please drop by and if you have any ideas for things that you really want in there let me know and I’ll see if I can get it in!
Cheers,
Justin
Hi, Justin. I wish I could, but I’m booked up right now on consulting gigs and my day job. Good luck though!
Seesmic Desktop rel. 0.6 already manages Facebook accounts (ONLY ONE) but if you admin Facebook pages through this FB profile, they (those pages) can be also included within your (Seesmic) desktop. Thus, you are able to publish the same message throughout all your Twitter (several) accounts, your FB profile and your FB pages. Naturally, you can decide which of them are active for every message. The “downside” is you receive Newss Feeds from ALL your fb-networking, even from those who you’ve hidden on Facebok platform… De eopers told they are working to upgrade adding hidding capability.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Good review, a few months out of date now but interesting still the same. Thanks