so.there.we.were

I’ve been trying out the whole micro-blogging thing lately, via Twitter obviously, and have mixed feelings so far about it. I’ve got it set up on my phone with the text messaging, on my IM (I use Adium cos I have like 5 different accounts to keep in touch with clients), it’s linked through to my Facebook status, blah, blah, blah…

I have also downloaded a couple of desktop clients to use while I type away the time at my desk. This is where I’m having trouble finding one that fits all of my needs. Keep in mind that I am attempting to see how the service FriendFeed could work for me as well.

Twhirl was the first one I gave a whirl and it seemed to work really well. I could send @ messages and direct messages (DM) straight from the client, as well as take advantage of the URL shortening and pic uploading features. The window was completely resizable to fit in the already limited desktop space that I have and the logos for each user added a nice touch. As a client purely for Twitter, it was great.

Then they added support for FriendFeed, which I thought was great, so I updated the app and entered the info and it opened a new Twhirl window. What?!? As, I already mentioned I barely had enough space for one window, two was out of the question. So, I closed the FriendFeed window and reverted to Twitter.

Along came AlertThingy, which was purely a FriendFeed desktop client at first, but just recently added Twitter support (including de-duping). The brilliant thing about this app is that it delivers all Twitter and FriendFeed updates to a single window (the space issue) and has a built-in Flickr uploader and URL shortening tool, plus a pretty slick design.

However, the window is not fully resizable, there are no user icons, you cannot send DM straing from the client (@ relies are good though) and there are extra clicks involved to send a “tweet.”

Both apps are based on Adobe AIR, which makes them relatively lightweight and responsive. I think AlertThingy has a slight memory-usage edge, but not much now that it has Twitter support as well.

I’m using AlertThingy for now, but if Twhirl can figure out how to combine Twitter and FriendFeed into one update window, I may move back to the that app.

What a tangled web I weave when at first I try to micro-blog.

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