Over the last several months I have caught the Twitter bug.  More generally, I have increased my usage of many different social networking sites like Flickr, Facebook, LinkedIn, TripIt, Lumberjocks and FriendFeed.  Each of these sites provides me opportunities to meet and interact with different groups of people.  Some of my friends span all these networks and some don’t.

One thing that distinguishes Twitter from many of these other Social Networking sites, is that Twitter has a very rich set of desktop clients available.  For me this makes all the difference in the world and is what most dramatically impacted my Twitter usage.  I have used a number of different clients, including Witty and Twhirl, but for me, TweetDeck is the one to beat for serious Twitterers.

I am not the only one who thinks so, Dave Rohrer loves TweetDeck.  As does Michelle Greer and Melissa Chang who all had great reviews of TweetDeck.

So what is it that, in my opinion, make TweetDeck the leading Twitter client?  RealEstate!  Take a look at my TweetDeck below (note: I have removed my DM column to keep private messages private)

The ability to support multiple columns of data is something I have not seen in any other Twitter client. Out of the box I have access to my full feed, my replies and my direct messages.  Most other clients limit you to a single column with tabs for the various views.  This is ok, but requires you to constantly fiddle with the client to monitor your tweets.  With TweetDeck, a quick glance tells me instantly if I have any new replies or DMs.

If multi-columns was the only additional feature, it would likely be enough to warrant moving to TweetDeck.  The big difference is in the ability to fill up those columns.  In my experience, once you start following more than about 100 people, you will not be able to keep up with the tweets.  That is ok, you can’t possibly be involved in every conversation, all the time.

One killer feature that TweetDeck offers is the ability to create your own groups.  I can create a sub-group of people I am following so that I can better focus on that group.  I might have a group of my developer friends, a group of DotNetNuke friends, a group of woodworking friends, etc.  This allows me to have groups where I have deeper relationships, even while I have a much broader group that I am just getting to know.  Some of whom will eventually be filtered down into subgroups.

The other feature that I rely on a lot is the search feature.  TweetDeck offers support for the Twitter search API which allows me to keep searches open on topics I am interested in.  Since I use Twitter as a business tool, I keep a couple of search columns open permanently. 

I dedicate one column to a search related to DotNetNuke.  This lets me keep in touch with what people are saying about my company or it’s software.  I have even helped a few people resolve issues because I was paying attention.  Instead of those people just venting in frustration, I was able to reach out and help resolve their problems.  In many cases it is just a matter of helping them find the forums and letting the community do what it does best.

The other search I keep open is one on our major competitors.  I like to know what people are saying about them.  What do they like?  What challenges are they having?  You get the idea.

As you can see, there is a lot of information to consume.  I generally keep the fast moving streams to the left and keep slow moving streams and searches to the right.  If I am pushed for time I know exactly which columns are the most important to review and which ones I’ll let slide by.

To truly get the most use out of TweetDeck, plan to dedicate a single monitor to the task.  I have two monitors on my desk, but I am thinking of setting up my old laptop as a dedicated TweetDeck client just so I don’t have to take up my primary development screens.

For me TweetDeck is the killer app for Twitter.  Now I just need one for FriendFeed and I’ll be all set.