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.
