TweetDeck is my go-to application for managing and catching up on Twitter (News - Alert). It’s one of my first tabs opened when I start up my computer in the beginning of the day and it’s the last to close at the end. It stays pinned to my browser all day, continuously and automatically updating my feeds and columns for me to make the most of tracking real-time Twitter conversations.
The application was originally an Adobe (News - Alert) Air desktop application that integrated services from Twitter, Twitscoop, 12seconds, Stocktwits and Facebook. Twitter acquired TweetDeck in 2011 for more than $40 million and rebuilt the application in HTML5.
In a blog post yesterday, TweetDeck unveiled it is discontinuing support for its iPhone (News - Alert), Android and Adobe AIR clients, which all rely on v1.0 of Twitter’s API, starting in early May. The API will be retired starting this month. In their place, the company will focus on the Web, the Chrome app and the Mac and PC clients. In continuation of the Twitter and Facebook (News - Alert) rivalry, the application is also pulling Facebook integration.
Image via Google (News - Alert) Play
“Over the past few years, we’ve seen a steady trend towards people using TweetDeck on their computers and Twitter on their mobile devices,” said the blog post. “This trend coincides with an increased investment in Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android –– adding photo filters and other editing capabilities, revamping user profiles and enhancing search. That said, we know this applies to most of our users –– not all of them. And for those of you who are inconvenienced by this shift, our sincere apologies.”
Lance Ulanoff, former PCMag editor-in-chief and current editor-in-chief of Mashable, predicted the demise of TweetDeck one year ago. Ultimately, it comes down to Twitter’s lack of interest in supporting third-party Twitter clients. Although TweetDeck will still exist and continue to see enhancements on Web clients (for now), Ulanoff was on the right track.
Recent updates to the Chrome and Web applications include notifications, search term autocomplete, search filters, automatically updated tweet streams and weekly Web releases. Other new features introduced were wide column setting, new font sizes, spacebar scrolls down a page of tweets and actions when clicking on notifications.