For a while now, I've mostly used TweetDeck to keep up with what's new on Twitter. When I first used TweetDeck, it was a long way ahead of the Twitter website, with plenty of new functionality. However, I've noticed that the gap between the two is quickly closing. There are other Twitter clients too, but as I'm familiar with TweetDeck, this post only compares the Twitter website (hereafter referred to as "Twitter.com") and TweetDeck.

Realtime updates

TweetDeck happily sits on your screen, pushing out tweet after tweet. Twitter.com has recently introduced a feature that notifies you when new tweets are available, but you have to click on the notification box to show them. I quite like this approach - it means I don't lose my place if I'm not ready for new tweets yet. It's especially good if I have Twitter open, but I'm not watching it at the time.

Lists / Groups

TweetDeck has groups, which can be used to separate a large follower list into manageable chunks. However, while the theory is sound, I've never had much of a use for them. Twitter.com recently added lists, which do much the same thing. I like that I can see who's added me to their lists, and I have set up a handful of lists so I can group related people together - but I rarely, if ever, sit on a list page and read the tweets there. Occasionally I go and skim through them. It's handy to see what my work colleagues have been saying, as it is useful to group them all together. That particular list is private - I don't want to share it with people who aren't in the group - but it would be handy if I could have a semi-private list for all members of the group. Something to hope for?

Multiple accounts

This is a key feature that stops me from abandoning TweetDeck completely. I have three Twitter accounts, and it's a huge pain to switch between them at Twitter.com. TweetDeck makes it easy to post under each account without constantly signing in and out. But I'd still have to switch accounts to add new followers on the accounts I'm not signed into. Unfortunatelty, this means I rarely follow people on anything except my main account. This is one thing I'd like to see addressed.

Notifications

TweetDeck is very good for this kind of thing, and it's another reason why I keep using it. If I get a reply, or something comes up in one of the searches I like to keep an eye on, I get a notification popup. Even better than that, I don't have to click a link to switch between views in TweetDeck - unlike Twitter.com, where I'm constantly clicking between "Recent", "Replies", my saved searches, and occasionally DMs.

Saved Searches

This is a tough call. TweetDeck allows you to add an extra column for a saved search. But Twitter.com allows you to perform a one-off search that much more easily, and set it as a saved search if you wish to do so. However, you then have to click the saved search to view its results, while in TweetDeck you can just see it right there. All these TweetDeck options are great, but there's one rather big drawback...

Screen real estate

I use a 15" laptop - pretty small. It's nice, but it's not great for TweetDeck, as it would take up my entire screen if I had four columns open. I used to have a desktop PC with two large monitors, and TweetDeck worked well there. But even when you use TweetDeck on a large screen, it's all too easy to fill up your screen with several columns - and a horizontal scrollbar just isn't the same as being able to see everything at once. On a smaller screen, I find that Twitter.com is much easier to use than TweetDeck.

Retweets

TweetDeck has had a convenient "retweet" link that allows you to take someone else's tweet and share it with your followers. Twitter.com is in the process of implementing a native retweet feature, which should level the playing field somewhat. But as I've only just got it, I haven't really played with it much yet.

Trending Topics

Occasionally, this can be a fun way to see what's popular at the moment, and maybe even meet some new people - if you can ignore the spam (which, by the way, Twitter has been dealing with). It was good on Sunday evening, as I was able to find out who else was watching the latest Doctor Who special. Unfortunately, TweetDeck doesn't seem to have this feature. Well, it's not in the version I have (v0.31.1) anyway...

So which is better?

It's crazy, but because Twitter.com has been adding so many new features recently and TweetDeck continues to be convenient for multiple accounts and notifications, I've actually been using both of them simultaneously. It is difficult to choose between them, but I do think the gap is closing. When I first used TweetDeck, Twitter.com no longer felt like "simple is better". It's possible to keep the interface simple as you add new features. I'm glad that new stuff has been added to Twitter.com.

What do you think? Which is your favourite Twitter client? Why?

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