The Newsroom

I've said a few times on this blog and on Twitter that the perfect social media dashboard app would be a combination of HootSuite and TweetDeck (ideally, the ChromeDeck version). I'll expand on that and explain what I mean, and then some creative programmer can write "HootDeck" for me: HootSuite is great because it's a web-based app - there's nothing to install and it's portable in the sense that you can log into your account from any computer anywhere and your customized dashboard seamlessly flows into your browser. And it has a really well done iPhone app as well. The built-in ow.ly URL shortener and basic built-in statistics are a nice value-added touch that should serve the needs of most users. If not, HootSuite sells premium subscriptions with added features. HootSuite also supports scheduled updates - the ability to type in an update for Twitter, Facebook or other social network and have it posted at a pre-set time in the future. I love this ...

The big tech news today is that TweetDeck has been purchased by Twitter . I'm fine with it. Sure, I'm a little concerned that Twitter may ruin TweetDeck by, say, dropping support for Facebook and other social networks. But, hey, it's a Twitter app. I can and do use HootSuite (as well as TweetDeck ), so unless Twitter goes on some massive buying spree to eliminate all competition, I still have alternatives if Twitter decides to get stupid with TweetDeck. Besides, TweetDeck is doing some really innovative things these days, and Twitter proper could use some innovation. So I remain hopeful.

After some delays , the new TweetDeck for iPhone app (known as iOSDeck) arrived in the App Store this morning. And not a moment too soon, as the old app was badly broken and TweetDeck effectively abandoned it months ago in favor of rebuilding it from the ground up. I've had some time to play with it today and here are my impressions: The Good: Combined columns: This is the greatest new thing ever in Twitter apps. While this was a feature already included in the Chrome version of TweetDeck (known as ChromeDeck ), its making its first appearance here in the iPhone app. Basically, instead of having a Twitter feed, a Facebook feed, a DM feed, etc., you can merge columns, so you can put your FB and Twitter feed into the same column; all your replies, Facebook mentions, etc., go into another column, and so on. You can combine multiple searches into one column. The flexibility to create your own columns substantially cuts down on the number of columns I have running. A gigantic thum...

The hot new iPhone app on the Interwebs these days is Tweetbot , which is billed as "A Twitter client with personality". Basically, it's a Twitter app. That's underselling it, because it's a very good Twitter app, but it's still fundamentally another way to access Twitter on your iPhone or iPod Touch. And heaven knows that the world has been lacking in Twitter apps, eh? The good: It's got a very slick interface with features that, quite frankly, I'd love to see stolen by other Twitter apps that I prefer to use , particularly the little "drawer" of commands that opens up underneath a tweet when you tap on it (see image) to reply, retweet, or bring up other options. It's one of those small things that as soon as you see it, you wonder why no one else has ever thought of it before. The swipe-left/swipe-right features on tweets to bring up conversations and related tweets is also quite nice. The usability of Tweetbot is its big adva...

Out of the blue about two weeks ago, my HootSuite iPhone app deleted my social networks and forced me to start everything again from scratch. I was a bit taken aback, because HootSuite has always been rock solid for me as an app. And it had fairly recently become my primary iPhone app for Twitter because of Twitter for iPhone’s issues. ( See entry above .) I put a call out on Twitter to HootSuite’s help account (@HootSuite_Help) and they responded quickly offering suggestions and advice. As it turned out, it was me and not them who figured out the problem (I found this on HootSuite’s site) but the point is that HootSuite’s help team engaged quickly and wanted to solve my problem. And, they have a lot of online resources for users to go through to look for their own solutions. Thumbs up for them.

Yes, I broke down and bought the full version of HootSuite. It's funny, too, because in an email exchange with a friend earlier today, I said that I was perfectly happy using Twitter for iPhone on my iPod Touch because it's free and I'm too cheap to pay $2.99 for HootSuite, even though it's what I use as my main Twitter application. But I ended up breaking down and buying it out of the sheer convenience of being able to link up my entire family's Facebook accounts to it, enabling all of us to update Facebook from the road without having to log in and out of four different Facebook accounts all the time. So, congratulations, HootSuite. You managed to pry $2.99 out of my stingy hands.