Mentions | It's All Virtual

5 Reasons I’m Breaking Up With You, TweetDeck

February 27, 2012

Introduction

We’ve had a great time together, TweetDeck. And believe me, it’s not you, it’s me. Breaking up is hard to do, so I’ve decided to compose this posting to let you know. Yes, yes, that was quite impersonal of me. Let me explain why I feel the way I do.

1) Curbing Application Proliferation.

Despite the emergence of SaaS, we have more and more applications running on our desktop or laptop. If I could accomplish all of my Twitter activity within my browser, then you, unfortunately, are one less application I need to have running (I’m so sorry).

And I’ll tell you a dirty little secret about social streams: they consume lots of memory! My browsers tend to consume 250-700+ MB and you, while consuming less, still needed 100-200+ MB of tender loving RAM. With one less application, my computer is already running faster. Like I said, it’s me, not you.

2) The New @Connect Tab.

Yes, yes, it seems I’m already seeing other services. This one happens to be called Twitter.com. The New Twitter (or is it the “New New New Twitter”?) has a nifty “@Connect” tab. Under “Interactions,” it lists everything I want to know:

Mentions.
Retweets.
When someone “Favorites” my tweet.
New followers.
When someone adds me to their Twitter List.

You, TweetDeck, had columns available for mentions and new followers, but I’d often miss seeing retweets. And, to have this all in a single place is useful to me. So in this case, TweetDeck, I’m afraid it’s you and not me.

3) Twitter “Home” Got Better.

Yes, the new love of my life, Twitter.com, improved the “Home” tab. I remember the day I first laid eyes on you, TweetDeck. When I entered a URL, you’d auto-shorten it for me. And oh, did I love that. But this is now a standard feature on most tweet services, including Twitter.com.

In addition, I like glancing at the “Who to follow” area of “Home” and always seeing someone I recognize. I don’t mind the fact that it really should be “Whom to follow,” as I’m not a stickler or anything like that.

And finally, when my tweet stream is flying off the edge, I like how Twitter.com shows, “372 new Tweets” (or whatever the number is) and forces a click (from me) to display them. I think we were moving too fast together, TweetDeck, as your tweet stream would constantly flow.

4) Nifty new #Discover tab.

I like the nifty new #Discover tab on New Twitter. It’s rendered like a newspaper site, with key topics as headlines. I can follow a link and see tweets on the selected topic. And there’s always a single content piece (article) beneath the headline. So I can browse interesting articles, if I’m so inclined. My oh my, TweetDeck, I wonder if Twitter has crossed over from technology provider to media company?

5) But Wait.

But here’s the one thing Twitter.com cannot provide me. Your columns, TweetDeck. I could set up a number of columns for topics and hash tags and be able to glance at the related streams. I used to monitor mentions of my employer, along with the #eventprofs hash tag. On Twitter.com, I need to manually check those “feeds” from time to time.

Conclusion

Well, TweetDeck, you were certainly my first love. But you know what? Twitter acquired you in May 2011, so while I’m leaving you, I’m certainly staying in the same neighborhood. And I bet that your parent doesn’t mind that I’m now exclusively using Twitter.com. Take care and perhaps we’ll see each other again.