Today, we’re releasing a new version of TweetDeck. This update introduces some great new features as well as a host of smaller improvements and bug fixes. Check out this video for a quick tour of the updates, and read on for more information.
List Management
You can now create, edit and delete lists directly in the app. There is even a dedicated Lists button on the toolbar, so you can quickly and easily dive in to manage your lists. Additionally, all user profiles have an “Add or Remove from lists” menu item, making it easy to manage list memberships for any Twitter user.
Activity & Interactions
We’ve added two columns to TweetDeck to make it possible to see additional activity on Twitter, including retweets, favorites and follows.
A new Interactions column, available under the Add Column button, is like an enhanced Mentions column. It shows not only all of your mentions, but also alerts when you have been followed, added to a list, retweeted or favorited.Perhaps even more interesting is another new column type called Activity. This column shows a real-time feed of all the follow, favorite and add-to-list actions performed by the accounts that you follow. We think you’ll find this helps you discover lots of interesting accounts and content that you may not have previously seen.
Media
TweetDeck now has inline media previews, so you can view images and videos faster and more easily. You will now see a small preview of images and videos under the related Tweet. If you’d rather not see in-line media, just turn this option off under Settings > General.
Additionally, you can view a large preview of images and videos in an in-app media gallery. Just click the preview image, or the URL in the Tweet, and the media will be displayed in a large gallery view.
Edit & RT
We listened to the feedback that the “Quote” retweet option was not as useful as the previously available “RT @username:” format. So, in this version, we’ve replaced “Quote” with “Edit & RT,” which lets you edit the Tweet before sending.
Downloading the update
Windows: Close the app and restart. The app should auto-update to the latest version. Mac OS X: Open the Mac App Store, click Updates and grab the updated TweetDeck app Chrome app: Restart your Chrome browser and the TweetDeck app will auto-update Web: Go to web.tweetdeck.com and hit your browser refresh button.
We're working hard to bring you even more new TweetDeck features and improvements, so keep an eye out for more news.
I am extremely happy and proud to let you know that TweetDeck has been acquired by Twitter. We completed the deal on Tuesday and are now in the process of "joining the flock".
The past three years have been an epic journey, with many highs and lows, accompanied by the constant thrill of never really knowing what to expect next. We've grown from one team member and a single user, to a team of fifteen and a user-base of millions. The reason for this growth is simple - our unwavering focus on providing high-quality tools and services for the Twitter-centric power-user. This has always been our core audience - the most active, influential and valuable users of Twitter and social media in general. Quality over quantity.
It is precisely for this reason that Twitter has acquired TweetDeck. The mainstream Twitter user-base is well catered for by twitter.com and the official mobile clients. And by becoming part of the official platform, TweetDeck will now fill that role for brands, influencers, the highly active and anyone that just needs "more power".
Change may well be inevitable, but we remain the same team, staying in London, with the same focus and products, and now with the support and resources to allow us to grow and take on even bigger challenges.
I'd like to finish with a big thank-you to all our investors for their support and guidance over the past few years, especially Betaworks, TAG, SV Angel and PROfounders. And of course a huge congratulations to the whole TweetDeck team - I'm extremely proud of you and this is a huge win for us all.
Our TweetDeck Hack Days are opportunities for our dedicated band of designers, developers and magic-makers to take a break from their usual tasks and get their teeth into whatever cool, clever and captivating project they can dream up. Whether its a clever new tweak to one of our existing products, or something new and different that we've never seen before, all ideas are welcome. The innovation shown at these days is always very exciting and, on a personal level, as a "non-hacker", I am always totally amazed by the quality and diversity of the projects that the team can come up with in just one day. The resulting creations are often hugely valuable as proofs of concepts that eventually find their way into our live products.
So, without further ado, here are the concepts that were presented by the TweetDeck team after yesterday's Hack Day. Vote for your favourite in the poll at the bottom and we'll use the results to see which of these great ideas might make it into production.
If you have any (sensible) ideas for future hacks, let us know in the comments. If we like the idea and it ends up being implemented, we'll give you a shout-out right here :)
See notifications of unread Gmail emails directly in your Inbox column. Click through to the full message on the web. This has often been requested, but thanks to @TimtheT for the most recent prompting :)
Insert unicode smily faces, arrows, horse heads (!) and even upside-down text thanks to this compose-box hack for ChromeDeck. Also, bonus point for spotting an upcoming new feature...
It's the Chrome TweetDeck codebase, but implemented as a true native app (not just a wrapped-up web page) for Mac, Windows & Linux. It even has Growl notifications!
Don't stop tweeting, just because you're walking. With this Android hack you can see where you're going thanks to the live camera-view background on the compose screen. Thanks to some accelerometer trickery, the camera view fades in as you start to walk and fades out when you stop, so you don't even need to enable/disable it!
During the course of developing our client apps and backend architecture, we have put a lot of hard work into developing many services internally to solve specific problems or improve performance where existing solutions have not been sufficient for our needs.
We have always been big users, and supporters, of open-source software here at TweetDeck, so, in the spirit of giving something back to the open-source community, we are open-sourcing a project, TDOAuth, which we hope might prove useful to a wider audience.
TDOAuth is a BSD-licensed, single-header and source, drop-in OAuth 1.0 solution for Cocoa Objective-C projects. It doesn't implement the whole spec, but it implements the bits that you'll find in the wild. It has a low-level approach, and a minimal interface, so you'll grok how it works and not be that person who made your codebase depend on a big black OAuth-box that nobody understands or knows how to fix.
We're also pleased to say that we will continue our stewardship of txRedis. txRedis is an event-based Redis client for Twisted Python. Redis is an in-memory fast key-value store used to implement TweetDeck services like deck.ly and sync. The library is licensed under an Apache2 license, and is a fork of the original txRedis by Dorian Raymer. We've put a lot of work into fixing protocol parsing bugs, improving performance, and implementing support for Redis 2.2.
You all enjoyed the trailer, but now the year's biggest blockbuster has arrived at last. iPhone TweetDeck v2.0 is here!
In Hollywood they would call it a "re-imagining" - keep the essence of the original, but bring it bang up to date with a new team, top-class effects and plenty of scope for sequels. Ditch the camp soundtrack and overacting of Batman and Robin, and replace it with the cool car and new suit of Batman Begins.
With the all-new iPhone TweetDeck, we have done just that. Our team took the original iPhone app and distilled the essence of what made it so popular into a series of guiding principles. They then embarked on creating a brand new app from scratch, making use of all the latest technologies and design approaches, but all the while with an eye on those fundamental principles from the original.
After several months of feverish work, locked in the lab at the Batcave for hours on end, a new app was born. Like the change from Michael Keaton to Christian Bale, the new app is faster, more powerful, more flexible and, lets be honest, far more sexy.
We have put a huge amount of work into creating an app that embodies everything that is good about TweetDeck. Every aspect has been designed to work beautifully, from the big things like the swiping between columns, the navigation through user profiles and easy-as-pie Add Column flow, to the little things like the Pull to Update animations and the slick Follow/Unfollow slider.
And not only is new iPhone TweetDeck more beautiful, it offers a new flexibility that has never been seen before. Making the "pinch" gesture on a column give you access to options that will allow you to add any combination of your feeds into a column. Twitter timelines, Mentions, DMs Favourites, Lists, Searches, Facebook feeds....all can be blended together into columns that suit you. The Caped Crusader never had anything as cool as this.
Throw in retina-quality graphics and multi-tasking support and you have an app that really is the start of something special.
And of course, the app is totally free, which means you won't have to pull off any Joker-style bank raids in order to use it.
Downloading the app
You can download the iPhone TweetDeck v2 from the AppStore here.
The old TweetDeck apps have been temporarily removed from the AppStore as iPhone TweetDeck v2.0 is a brand new app, not an update, and we want to avert any confusion. However, the old apps will be updated soon to include a splash-screen directing you to download the v2.0 app.
iPad users, don't fret, your time will come! We are already working on optimising the new app for the iPad and we will be updating to a universal app in the next few weeks, once we have finished that work.
Help, support and feedback
Don't forget, this is only the start for our new app. We already have plans for point releases and will continue to update, fix and improve the app regularly. A key part of this process will be your feedback, which we always find hugely valuable. So please let us know what you think of the app, and alert us to any issues, via our dedicated Twitter account @iOSDeck. We also have some support documentation here, which you might find useful to help you get started.
We hope you enjoy using this new generation iPhone TweetDeck. We really do feel it embodies the essence of what TweetDeck is, and look forward to being able to develop that further to bring you more features, more flexibility...and obviously more cowbell.
Feature Overview
Here's a summary of the great features in iPhone TweetDeck v2.0
All-new design
The new iOS TweetDeck uses the same design themes and elements that were first introduced in our Android app, and followed through to or Chrome app too.
iOS4 compatible
The app has been built to fully support the new features of iOS4, so you'll find retina-quality visuals and multi-tasking support as standard.
Your Columns, your way
Of course all the standard twitter column types are available: Mentions, DMs, Lists etc. We have also brought combined columns to iOS, so you can add your Home, Me and Inbox columns to combine updates from all your accounts. But perhaps the most exciting column feature is that you can customise the feeds that appear in your columns as you wish.
In the Home, Me and Inbox pre-defined columns you can choose exactly which accounts will be used. In any other column, you can just mix and match feeds as you wish. So if you want to see DMs from one account, blended with your Facebook news feed, plus a couple of Twitter Lists, then you can do. Fancy blending a Twitter search, with your Mentions and Favourites? No problemo!
You really do have the power to create totally flexible columns to suit your own needs. And every column has infinite scrolling, so you can easily go back and catch up on what you missed.
Long posts or short - it's up to you
Thanks to built-in support for Deck.ly, you can send long updates easily. Don't want to use Deck.ly? Just turn it off in the settings app
Get around with gestures
Pinch inward on a column to access column settings - for adding feeds, repositioning and deleting the column. Tap the status bar to jump to the top of the column. Pull a column down to refresh.
Immersive discovery
Explore Twitter profiles by swiping through feeds. Navigate through to tweet details, follow links, reach though to related profiles. Add any feed as a column with just one touch.
Follow the back-and-forth
The tweet detail view shows the full conversation, including, by pulling down on a tweet, any subsequent additions to the thread.
All the basics
All the standard Twitter functions that you expect are there: retweets, both old and new, replies, direct messages, favourites. And of course Facebook likes, comments and wall posts are a breeze.
Classy compose
The clean, fresh compose window offers posting from multiple accounts, photo uploads, geotagging, URL shortening and username autocomplete. And, as we mentioned above, long posts of more than 140 characters are possible thanks to Deck.ly integration.
A new foundation
iOS TweetDeck v2.0 has been built from the ground up to be stable and reliable, with frameworks in place to allow us to easily integrate new server-side processes like column sync as they are developed.
As Whitney Houston sang, "We believe that web apps are our future"... (well, near enough...). And today we're launching a beta of a web app that you're going to really love*.
Since its launch in December last year, Chrome TweetDeck has consistently been the most popular app in the Google Web Store. We are delighted to see that almost 400,000 users are now enjoying the super-slick new interface, and great new features like combined columns, enhanced Facebook integration and the flexibility that running in a web browser brings.
As we said at the time, Chrome TweetDeck marks the start of a new era for TweetDeck, with all efforts now focussed on building our next-generation products as HTML5 and mobile apps. Since then we have been working hard, not only on improving the existing ChromeDeck experience, but also on bringing the same TweetDeck app to other web platforms.
So today we are very pleased to announce that we are opening up a limited beta of TweetDeck Web. This new service is built on the same core as Chrome TweetDeck, with the same UI and broadly the same product features (the main difference being that TweetDeck Web does not use Twitter streaming). TweetDeck Web, however, is a standalone web site and requires no downloads, no App Stores and is not limited to any one brand of web browser.
Initially we need a small cross-section of users to test TweetDeck Web across the recent versions of all the major web browsers. As a guide, we are particularly targeting Chrome, Firefox 3.6, Firefox 4 and Safari, with support for Opera and Internet Explorer 9 being added soon.
As with previous beta products, access will be granted by whitelisting your TweetDeck account. Only users with whitelisted TweetDeck accounts will be able to acces TweetDeck Web Beta initially, but we will gradually open up the process to more users over time.
If you would like to help us create a fantastic new product that will be the future of TweetDeck, please sign up with your TweetDeck account here : www.tweetdeck.com/webbeta.
We obviously need to test TweetDeck Web on a broad range of systems, so when you sign up, please tell us which specific web browser and version you use. Once we have identified the initial group of testers, we will send emails to The Chosen Ones, with more detail about the beta and explaining how to give us feedback.
So if you fancy helping us shape the very latest TweetDeck goodies, sign up now. We look forward to welcoming you to the future!
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* ...if you are a fan of TweetDeck and web apps that is. Obviously, if you're not, then you probably won't, so feel free to not read the rest of the article. Thanks :)
For the last few months we have been working feverishly on something very very special for iPhone and iPad users. Something totally new. Something very exciting. Something imbued with #TigerBlood. It's our brand new TweetDeck app for iPhone and iPad and you're so going to love it.
Our Android app set a new level for not just mobile Twitter apps, but Android apps in general. Still gaining great reviews, Android TweetDeck also defined a new era of TweetDeck design, form and function. For our brand new iPhone/iPad app, we have taken this level of quality and innovation and built in a whole bucketful of magic to create a TweetDeck app that will raise the bar for iOS apps just like we did for Android.
This totally new, fully iOS4-compatible TweetDeck app has been built completely from scratch. It is not only the most powerful and flexible mobile app we have ever produced, but also the most jaw-droppingly beautiful. This is the app your retina display has been crying out for.
A major new feature of iOS TweetDeck will be totally flexible columns. You want to create a column blending your Mentions and some Twitter Lists? No problem! Always wanted to see your Facebook feed and Twitter DMs in a single column? We’ve got you covered! New iOS TweetDeck puts you in control of your columns, giving total flexibility over which feeds appear in which columns. Your social world has never been so personal.
We are currently doing a final round of testing with the app and we aim to be submitting it to the App Store in the next couple of weeks.(See UPDATE below). You can, however, get your hands on the app before anyone else if you are visiting this year’s SXSW. Just look out for Iain and Steve, who will be in Austin, and have 50 invites to give away allowing early access to the app via TestFlight. And not only that, but they will also be doling out TweetDeck gear in the form of exclusive T-shirts, stickers, badges, fluffy birds, and any other swag they can stuff in their luggage! We'll announce more details about this soon.
So if you are a die-hard TweetDeck fan, patiently waiting for a new app, we thank you sincerely for your patience. The reward will be well worth the wait.
If you’re planning on being first in line to grab an iPad 2 and want a kick-ass app for your new kick-ass tablet, you know where to come.
Or maybe you are dissatisfied with your current app and want to search for something new.
Stop looking, stop waiting. Start winning, with new iOS TweetDeck.
UPDATE 31/03/2011
Testing has taken us slightly longer than we thought (meaning you're going to get an even better app!), but we will be submitting the app to Apple in the next few days. Thanks for your patience - the wait is nearly over :)
UPDATE 14/4/2011
So, there were a few more issues that needed clearing up before we submitted, but finally we have done it. The app is now submitted to Apple and all is in their hands. Fingers crossed it all goes well!
Yesterday was our internal TweetDeck Hackday where we "downed tools" on the day-to-day awesome and everyone was given free reign to prototype, build or design something (anything) they wanted to see in TweetDeck - however offbeat. Our previous HackDays have all been inspiring and led to new product features and strategies. Yesterday was no exception. In fact the innovation, enjoyment and creativity was so impressive, especially for just 8 hours, we're going to be doing this at least once a month.
So here's a taster of what was produced yesterday. Which ones do you want to see in production? What was the best idea? Who should win the HackDay prize?
And just to pre-empt the comments of "stop dicking around and build feature x which I've been demanding for months", HackDay and the ability to change focus on a regular basis is vital to how we think about TweetDeck, its development going forward and the continued innovation our users and us ourselves demand.
Up next: brand new iPhone, iPad and web-based TweetDecks - hopefully in time for SXSW.
Quickly tag tweets for private bookmarking or add to a To Do list, with assoicated columns
Instant Column Sync & Updated Column Viewer by @lostplan
Using background tweets to trigger a near-instant server sync of columns instead of polling, and a more accurate column viewer based on percentage visable of each column
Our "long post" feature, Deck.ly, has been available for a little over 2 weeks and I'm pleased to announce we've had over 1.35 million Deck.ly's created in that time. The rationale for creating the Deck.ly service was primarily to fulfil our most user-requested feature and I take the high usage of the service as an indication we're listening and responding well.
It's also true to say that deck.ly has polarised a certain section of our userbase - there's some real love (Happy Commercial Valentines Day btw) and some genuine negativity too. There are those adamant that using TweetDeck should be a "140 character only" service, while many are relieved they can go a few… or many… characters over.
Obviously polarising our userbase was not the intention, even though sometimes that is unavoidable. But I don't think this is one of those times.
We've been refining Deck.ly over the past two weeks in a number of ways, from being able to turn off the feature in it's entirety and improving the layout of long posts (reverting back to single height Deck.ly tweets in desktop TweetDeck), to giving you more control of what is and what isn't posted via Deck.ly. These refinements will be available to all over the next few days.
The other motivation behind Deck.ly was to experiment with generating revenue from various types of TweetDeck-specific ad-targeting on the deck.ly landing pages. With that in mind we've been watching the activity on the landing pages with great interest and this is what we've seen so far:
1,350,000 Deck.ly landing pages
1,200,000 visits
850,000 unique visits
1,500,000 page views
1,340,000 unique page views
Obviously two weeks ago we didn't have any of this usage, so I'm interested to see how this part of the TweetDeck platform evolves over time. It's certainly a great start.
And just for fun here are the Top 10 most visited Deck.ly posts so far:
So we just launched our awesome new Deck.ly service, allowing you to send messages of unlimited length to Twitter, should you so desire. You'd think that was enough awesomeness for now wouldn't you?
Well think again, TweetDeck fans!
Not only did we add Deck.ly support, but we also added a selection of other features and fixes across our Chrome, Desktop and Android apps too.
The full changelogs are all available here, but lets take a quick look at some of the highlights...
Chrome
Image previews in the app
We now provide an in-app preview for a host of major image and video services, including YFrog, Twitpic, Instagram & Youtube. When you click to open a supported media type, the image or video will open in a preview window inside the app. You can click to view the media on the host site, as well as "share" the link, which drops the URL into the compose box for you.
Access Comments from Facebook Notifications
You can now view and add comments on Facebook updates direct from the notification in your Me (and "Notifications") column. When you get a new Facebook notification update, eg "Fred just liked your post", you can now click the comment button and you will be taken to the comment thread for the item in question.
Translated into 11 languages
Chrome TweetDeck will now match your system language for those using: English UK, Brazilian Portugese, Dutch, French, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portugese & Spanish. There is no language setting in TweetDeck itself, it will just utilise the system language set by your operating system.
Better layout of Facebook attachments
Facebook news feed updates that contain attached links are now much clearer. The link is highlighted with a special icon so distinguish it from the message itself.
Desktop
In-app previews for Instagram images
Hipsters of the world can finally see their favourite 1970's style photos shown in all their glory in an in-app preview preview window.
Some tweaks and touch-ups
Including important fixes for issues with the Facebook authentication page & Twitter List updates.
Android
A few fancy fixes
Including:
Scrolling under Honeycomb
Previewing Intragr.am links containing _
Use the correct account when replying
Look out for lots more updates coming over the next weeks and months, especially on Chrome and Android.
And of course, our fantastic brand-spanking-new, iOS4-compatible app is getting closer to completion and we expect to have more news for you on that very soon.
