Tweetdeck Incorporates Facebook Status Updates - MarketingVOX

Tweetdeck Incorporates Facebook Status Updates - MarketingVOX

Tweetdeck Incorporates Facebook Status Updates

The Tweetdeck interface

Tweetdeck, a desktop client reportedly used by about 13% of Twitter users, launched an update that features Facebook integration, reports AllFacebook.

Tweetdeck aggregates data streams from Twitter, Twitscoop, 12seconds, and Stocktwits. It allows users to split feeds, organize those they follow into groups (work, personal, etc.) and conduct searches across the twittersphere to monitor topics of choice.

The Facebook integration incorporates status updates from the social network into the mix. (The new version is still in beta, but available to the public (download).

To use the new feature, users sign into Facebook and give Tweetdeck authorization. Then, from within Tweetdeck, they click on the Facebook icon at the top, which will add a new column that shows their Facebook friends' most recent status updates, which can be tweeted or emailed out to anyone. The stream updates once a minute.

Tweetdeck also supports real-time chat with Facebook friends, Mashable points out. If the person's name is green (signaling that they are online), users can initiate a Facebook chat session from within Tweetdeck.

Tweetdeck is maintaining its existing brand identity, but word has it the name might change in order to reflect the Facebook encompassment.

Facebook had struggled with streaming status services in the past because of a delay in response time to status.get calls. The API upgrade in early February gave developers access to users' status updates, links, and notes, however, "slowly tearing down the wall around its silo," observed ReadWriteWeb.

Exposing more data to the outside world will help Facebook better realize its ambition of becoming a channel for sharing among members. Twitter has contributed to this atmosphere by making real-time communication crucial to such sharing. The fresh status update API, closer ties to Twitter and dynamic updates may give the social network a more live feel.

At the start of 2009, Nick O'Neill predicted Facebook could "kill" Twitter by doing just this, declaring that "if Facebook opened up statuses tomorrow, Twitter would essentially become a ghost town."

In Nov. '08, Facebook and Twitter ended several weeks of serious talks whereby Facebook tried buying the microblogging service for $500 million worth of its own stock. The two sides could not agree on a price, nor on a structure for the hypothetically integrated companies, reports The Guardian.

Last Saturday, Facebook announced that Facebook Connect now works with iPhone apps and desktop apps like Seesmic, remarked TechCrunch. And last week social media news site SocialMedian announced that users can now sign in to the site using their Facebook login.

A recent report claims one in 10 online adults in the US has microblogged on Twitter or elsewhere. For its part, Twitter — which is increasingly perceived as less of a service than a utility — has yet to find a viable business model to support such use.