Courtesy: Tweetdeck.com

Courtesy: Tweetdeck.com

TweetDeck, a desktop Twitter application, released version v0.25b today.

Upon opening TweetDeck, a dialog box would appear notifying the user that there was an update available. After updating, there are several noticeable changes to TweetDeck, one of them being that the TweetDeck icon now has a gold background.

The Facebook Status Updates icon above the Tweet window activates a dialog box that would allow you to log onto Facebook, thereby giving TweetDeck access to pull your Facebook Status Updates. Take note that if you were already logged onto Facebook on your browser, logging through TweetDeck logs you off the browser version. Facebook only allows one instance of your log-in to be active unlike Twitter (recall the Twitter hacks of January 3rd and 4th 2009?).

Once you are logged onto Facebook via TweetDeck, TweetDeck will still feed your Facebook Status Updates even if you choose to return to your browser (read logging into Facebook again).

Just remember to have enough TweetDeck columns such that you are able to view the new column you will have created. As shown in the illustration above, I would not advice more than 4 columns. The 4 columns I use are All Friends, Replies, Direct Messages and Facebook: Friends Status. Incidentally, I think TweetDeck should have taken the cue from Twitter and renamed the Replies columns “Mentions”.

Other Facebook actions you can do via TweetDeck is Facebook Chat. You can also see which of your Facebook friends are online via a green dot that appears next to their name. Clicking on a Friends name opens up the link on your default browser.

The other major revision in this update is to the right of the Tweet window. Users now have the option to send the Status Updates to Twitter, Facebook or both. I think it is a very great thing that you can now view both Twitter and Facebook Status Updates on the same platform. However, I am not going to do the happy dance just yet because (1) I update my Facebook Status via Twitter 99% of the time (2) I always access both Twitter and Facebook, therefore if I wanted to update Facebook only, then I would update from Facebook itself (3) There are Facebook applications that allow you to select which of your tweets make it to Facebook. It would appear to me that this would only work to increase the popularity of TweetDeck, already considered one of the most used Twitter applications.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this one.