What is it About TweetDeck, Web 2.0's Bloomberg Terminal?

If you spend any time on Twitter, it's highly likely that you've heard of Tweetdeck. The application, which brings tweets, alerts and more direct to your desktop, has a lot of nice features and a huge following. TweetDeck is basically the Web 2.0 equivalent of a stock trader's Bloomberg terminal. In my view, it's certainly awesome, but it's also a huge distraction - unless you really need to monitor Twitter in real-time for, say, customer service. 

To get a sense for just how popular TweetDeck is, I ran it through Google Trends. As you can see below, Google searches globally for Tweetdeck (blue) are stronger than the same for Friendfeed (red)! What's more, TweetDeck is really starting to see sharp growth since the beginning of the year. That's remarkable.

As a rule, I try not to run any applications that are a drag on my resources - either mental or technological. TweetDeck does both so it's a non-starter for me. However, I am by far in the minority. A distraction for me is divinity for others.

Still, I can't help be curious about it. Why is it that an application that snarfs down so much noise and probably hides news (or at least makes it difficult to find) such a hit? I would think that TweetDeck's utility decreases as Twitter becomes a vast sea of re-tweets. I know a lot of people who lead very busy lives who run the app all the time and swear by it. 

Right now I am using Friendfeed lists and it's "best of day" feature to keep tabs on the conversation.I buy into Leo Babauta's strategy of taking Twitter and Friendfeed baths, rather than keeping the water dousing me all the time. However, this is limiting since not everyone I follow on Twitter aggregates their tweets into Friendfeed.

So, TweetDeck evangelists, educate me. How can someone like me who reads 650 RSS feeds a day, deals with 150+ emails a day plus IMs and a busy schedule filled with meetings, deep thinking, consulting and writing use TweetDeck to filter out the news from the noise? I don't think it's worth it now but maybe I am blind.

Comments

[Tejas Patel]

Distractions, it sure is. Sometimes I use a separate LCD Monitor just for Tweetdeck.

To get rid of noise, I use Groups functionality where I am reading to the people who are talking substance.

[Dwight Silverman]

It may be more appropriate to pair Tweetdeck against Twhirl, than Friendfeed. Tweetdeck is an app; Friendfeed is a service.

http://www.google.com/trends?q=tweetdeck%2C+twhirl&ctab=0&geo=all&date=mtd&sort=0

[Steve Rubel]

Dwight, I just think it's remarkable that for all of the hype aroundFriendfeed (note the news volume chart on the bottom) that Tweetdeckgenerates more searches. That's why I compared them. Also, I definitely seethe value for journalists. But for us regular folk, well...

[Ian Betteridge]

Of course, TweetDeck has an answer to the retweet madness: simple use filters to hide anything with "RT" in it :)

[Steve Rubel]

Ian, I do that now with search.twitter.com and RSS.

[Ian]

I couldn't live without tweetdeck now because of its ability to pear down the noise. My All Friends column is like a raging torrent - something I rarely have time to follow. The next column contains my Influencers group - people I really care about - this is more like a stream. This is the feed I look back through when I come back to twitter because content is so valuable. The other columns are replies and direct messages - which flow like little creeks.

The great thing about TweetDeck is that you can make any one of these groups your primary when it's in single column mode. That way only the low volume important stuff gets attention first.

[Diana]

Your "how can someone... use TweetDeck to filter out the news from the noise?" question haunts me as well. I wonder if anyone did find a successful method to filter data. I'd be the first to buy it, given the fact I spend huge amounts of time connected to Twitter via many services, both desktop/web-based and mobile.

I did give you some suggestions here http://tr.im/4lto here http://tr.im/4ltx AND here http://tr.im/4lueNothing you haven't heard before, I'm sure :)

@dianamaria

[Lori Seaborg]

To be fair, I haven't tried FriendFeed yet, but I do use TweetDeck. Like Ian said, you can create groups for those whom you need to read, and let the others just be the flow that you glance at on boring nights when there's nothing on t.v., no book is appealing, and you're looking for prolonged procrastination.

I do, I'll admit, turn it off when I'm not looking for that prolonged procrastination. The little "beep" that alerts me to a new tweet is more than I can resist.

~ Lori (tweeting at http://twitter.com/justpurelovely)

[Ian Betteridge]

That's nice Steve - but can you also do it for tweets within the list of people you follow?

Not that you're wrong to do it your way, but the filters in Tweetdeck are really easy to use and powerful, while retaining the "real time" aspect of Twittering.

[Steve Rubel]

Ian, I am sure. What I don't understand is how you follow it all while doingyour day job or having a life. Maybe I am just getting old!

[Ian Betteridge]

Well that's the thing: I don't follow it all the time. As with IM and email, I turn notifications off on TweetDeck when I'm focusing on something, so it doesn't disturb me.

But what it allows me to do is see all of the most interesting Twitter stuff at a glance, rather than having to go to my friends list, my searches, Twitscoop, etc. It's that "at a glance-ness" which actually means I spend less time having to dig deep in Twitter than I otherwise would.

[Mike Riley]

Steve,

I actually have used TweetDeck to watch for topics that interest me by using the search feature. It is very good to find new interesting items and trends from my topics that I would previously not have known about. The other thing I have done is that I let TweetDeck run in the background for the most part, but don't scroll to the top of my listings. I do this so that when I have some time I can quickly scan over new updates from where I left off. I have found it to be very helpful for keeping up to date on my interests.

Mike Rileytwitter.com/wdperson

[Tom Stitt]

TweetDeck, with Groups and Filters, provides a more traditional rich real-time user interface than search, saved search and RSS feeds. Also reflects the "OMG" of the moment nature of much tweetery. When I'm focused on being productive, harnessing the power of search and RSS with a searchable Reader (or Gmail) is hard to beat vs. the high noise-to-signal of TweetDeck or other comparable rich user interface clients. Not sure I'd go with the Bloomberg terminal analogy - using Tweetdeck is more like playing a piano or organ with multiple keyboards but no sheet music. On the intrusive interruption scale, TweetDeck fits somewhere between instant messaging and crawlers (anyone remember PointCast?)

Like TV, you can always turn TweetDeck off, lose the notifications (which would be useful if you could actually tie the notifications to specific Tweeters or topics) or use a feed tied to a less interruption driven channel like an RSS Reader.

Agree that Twitter, FriendFeed and all of the async/sync'd forms of immediate short messaging need scheduled immersion. Immediacy needs to be tempered with perspective over time. Perspective is usually found in longer forms of communication from skilled writers, videographers and communicators. Like you.

[Aldon Hynes]

I've used FriendFeed for quite a while. I've run Twhirl as well. I'm not a big fan of apps, so it took me a while to try Twhirl, and I never did get around to trying Tweetdeck.

Some of this is because I stumbled across PeopleBrowsr, which is a website that sounds like it does much of what Tweetdeck does, without all the extra app issues.

I also use Tweetdeck to monitor my Friendfeed stream. It is supposed to handle other streams as well (like Facebook, Flickr, Identica, etc.) but it is still in alpha and I haven't really tried those parts much.

I like the tagging in PeopleBrowsr, and especially the fact that the tags can create shared groups, similar to some of the groups I used to set up in Friendfeed for me and friends in different groups.

[Aaron B. Hockley]

I usually use Twhirl which takes up less screen real estate but there's one time when I use TweetDeck: conferences. I can setup multiple columns to monitor relevant topics or tags and get a real-time backchannel while I'm sitting in a conference session.

[Mike Riley]

Aaron,

That is a good point. I actually have done the same thing. Even if you are unable to attend a conference this is helpful. I find the search feature in TweetDeck very convenient.

Mike Riley

[Douglas Karr]

The key feature for me is grouping the accounts that I follow. Now I can view friends, view marketers, view celebs... etc. in my own, organized groups. I also like the Tweetcloud which is a great visual into what's happening right now. I've not filtered yet - I think that's what 'unfollow' is all about. And - I don't Retweet very often, if ever. It's all about grouping and organizing the conversations for me.

[mathewi]

My email inbox, feed reader and meeting schedule probably look very similar to yours, Steve, and I find Tweetdeck can actually save me time, through the use of its search, filter and groups features. It's a little like your analogy about FriendFeed and Twitter itself though -- you don't read them, you skim them, and then you go do other things and then come back and do it again. Follow smart people, organize them into groups, filter what you don't want.

[Steve Rubel]

Matthew, I would think it also has tremendous value to you too as newsgathering tool for journalism.

[mathewi]

It definitely does, yes -- and a tool for getting responses to things we report on, building community, etc.

[Daniel Tunkelang]

As Douglas Karr said, "I've not filtered yet - I think that's what 'unfollow' is all about." Steve, you follow almost 500 people. While that may seem small relative to the 15K people who follow you, attention is absolute, not relative. It sounds like you don't have time to pay attention to 500 people. Why not prioritize and cull the list?

[Steve Rubel]

Daniel, I do for sure - with Friendfeed.

[Evelyn So]

Excellent point. I actually quoted one of your interviews about how you did not get twitter in the beginning. Nor did I, nor did a lot of people. I am using it to test it out for professional reason.

Tweetdeck makes Twitter more tolerable. And even though I only have 115 followers, I already found twitter/tweetdeck using up too much of my time and attention.

Tweetdeck "Search" is a good function. And the ability to set up "groups" and different columns help, visually.

I would never rely on Twitter as my main source for news. It is for what I call "pulse sensing"....glance at it once in a while and maybe find some gems (though RT and links).

[Colin Henderson]

Ironically it took tweetdeck for me to 'get' friendfeed. FF lists are essentially the same as tweetdeck columns, although less obvious.

My only worry about tweetdeck is that its twitter centric. Any social media 'dashboard' should have at a minimum a method of surveying the world. Google Reader has been best at that so far, with feeds reflecting google searches, alerts, etc. It seems to me that FF has potential to take that further.

Meantime hats off to Ian and Tweetdeck - its a fabulous product, and I would expect to see it broaden its coverage too.

[Gard Jenssen]

Seems like the Google Trends search is not suuported by the trends of bloggers: http://www.trendpedia.com/simple_search.php?language=qq&country=xx&scope=_NO_VALUE&type=std&orig=SEARCH&d=l3m&series_0=tweetdeck&label_0=tweetdeck&series_1=friendfeed&label_1=friendfeed#language=qq|country=xx|scope=_NO_VALUE|orig=SEARCH|d=l3m|series_0=tweetdeck|label_0=tweetdeck|series_1=friendfeed|label_1=friendfeed