Webware

The new 0.30 version of TweetDeck, due out Wednesday, supports MySpace. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's my demographic. But who the heck cares about MySpace?

The MySpace addition to TweetDeck, though, shows how much CEO Iain Dodsworth wants TweetDeck to become, in his words, "a browser for the real-time Web."

I like TweetDeck a lot. I use it and Seesmic Desktop in equal proportions. But I'm not sure I want my Twitter client to get all fancy and over-ambitious. Twitter is hard enough to manage even with a good, clean client. If TweetDeck adds support for other real-time feeds--Dodsworth mentions Last.fm, Songkick, and Doppler, for example--then I worry about the clarity of TweetDeck's Twitter experience getting murky.

Although there are some integrations that can work. I welcome TweetDeck 0.30's improved Facebook support. It now supports photo streams and makes it easy to update Facebook directly from Twitter, among other features. While Twitter and Facebook have different feature sets that make mixing the two networks in one application a little weird, in TweetDeck they run in separate columns and stay nice and separate. (Seesmic Desktop can merge streams from Twitter and Facebook in a single column, quite successfully.)

TweetDeck 0.30 has MySpace support (not shown, because who cares?).

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

Other improvements in the new version of TweetDeck include even tighter Bitly integration, down to the app's automatic and instant conversion of long links to short ones as you type them (cool) and the capability to drag photos directly into TweetDeck to post them to Facebook (also cool). You can also click on a hashtag in a tweet to kick off a new search column for that tag.

TweetDeck also gets a new list of recommended Twitter accounts for users to follow, and the way you add users is particularly elegant: you can add a whole collection of Twitterers in a topic, like "Journalists," and TweetDeck creates a new column in the interface to follow just those accounts. Unfortunately the process for getting accounts on to the TweetDeck recommended lists is opaque or "editorial" at the moment, although Dodsworth does say he'll move to a crowd-sourced model shortly.

The new version's user interface appears to be cleaned up. However, it's really that some options are now hidden in second-level menus.

And still missing is an option to get a notification sound only on @replies or direct messages. Sometimes I run Seesmic Desktop just for that one feature.

In sum, version 0.30 is a decent upgrade to TweetDeck, although the app is approaching feature overload with its continuing addition of new services.

Previously: New versions of Tweetdeck, Seesmic square off

Some of us have multiple Twitter accounts that we need to manage. We have an account for work and an account for personal use. In that case, switching between usernames can be a pain. Luckily, there's an easy way to manage multiple Twitter accounts with some basic apps.

We've taken a look at a couple of services that will help you manage those accounts on your computer, but what about when you're away from home?

We have you covered there too. Let's take a look at iPhone apps that help you manage multiple Twitter accounts.

Manage multiple accounts

LaTwit Although LaTwit lets you post updates to multiple accounts, including those from Twitter, Identi.ca, and others, its interface is difficult to get used to. In fact, it detracts from the experience of using the app. If you're looking for other features, LaTwit also lets you post multiple tweets if your update exceeds the 140-character limit. But for $2.99, it might not be worth the price tag.

LaTwit has a convoluted design.

(Credit: LaTwit)

SimplyTweet SimplyTweet comes in two flavors: a Lite version for those who want a free app and a paid version with all the SimplyTweet features, which includes multiple user accounts. Don't let SimplyTweet's name fool you--it's not so simple. The app lets you draft notes, update your stream with iPhone photos, and more. It has a slew of features. The paid version is available for $3.99.

Besides multiple accounts, SimplyTweet also lets you view conversations.

(Credit: SimplyTweet)

TweetDeck TweetDeck is my favorite mobile Twitter client. Like its desktop alternative, the app provides a column view, making it easy to see all kinds of Twitter data pass you by. Plus, it makes it extremely easy to manage multiple accounts, creating a scenario where updating all your accounts will only take just a few seconds. TweetDeck also shortens URLs before you post to your stream. Overall, it's a great app. And since it's free, you'll probably like it even more.

TweetDeck has multiple columns to help you view your tweets.

(Credit: TweetDeck)

Since Adobe Systems relaunched its AIR marketplace, I've been spending some considerable time there. There are so many great apps, it's hard to pick just a handful worth talking about. But after taking some time to sift through all my apps, I've selected my favorites.

Adobe AIR aps

Adobe Media Player If you're a Photoshop, Premiere, or Dreamweaver user, the Adobe Media Player will come in handy. The app lets you watch a slew of videos that train you how to use Adobe's applications.

Although there are videos for advanced users, there are quite a few videos that help Photoshop novices find their way around the sophisticated program. You can also save your favorite videos and go step-by-step during instruction. It's a great app for anyone who wants to be creative.

Adobe Media Player teaches you how to use Adobe programs.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

AOL Top 100 Videos If you're a music lover, you'll love the AOL Top 100 Videos app. Instead of forcing you to go to YouTube to find videos or search through Google, AOL Top 100 Videos lets you watch them all right from the app. Besides having an outstanding design, the app lets you share clips with friends, create a "favorite videos" playlist, and pick the genre of music you like. The videos load quickly, and the quality is stellar.

AOL Top 100 Videos is perfect for music lovers.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Desktop iPhone Desktop iPhone is one of the coolest apps in this roundup. You can experience the iPhone user interface, check the weather, and record voice messages. But the Desktop iPhone app's best feature is the ability to make phone calls from the app with an account from online phone company Ribbit. More features, including Google Maps, Calculator, and other options haven't been enabled.

Desktop iPhone lets you use the iPhone UI.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

How many competing streams of information do you need to keep track of?

I monitor three e-mail accounts, Twitter, FriendFeed, and Facebook to keep current with life and work. Those are my streams of continuous personal input, separate from the items that we all handle on an interrupt basis: phone calls, Skype, IMs, and people dropping by.

I don't think I'm unique in feeling overwhelmed. There's a ton of information we're all getting in real time today, and we need modern ways to process it.

Some of the services responsible for generating floods of personal information are also innovating in giving users ways to deal with it. Facebook, for example, redesigned its default view to present a stream of information that users could throttle by the judicious use of new filters. A lot of people didn't like it, but Facebook was on to something: the future of dealing with personal incoming information streams is real-time filtering.

OutlookDeck gives you TweetDeck-like features for your e-mail stream.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

This is the new way to handle otherwise overwhelming incoming streams: Set up smart filters, park a window showing them somewhere on your desktop, and watch them out of the corner of your eye. It's the continuous partial-attention concept that has been talked about for a while, and with the right software tools and sufficient monitor real estate, it is not nearly as distracting as you might think.

If you're a pilot or a particularly attentive driver, you'll see this as similar to situation awareness, the pervasive perception of all the parts of your environment and your orientation to them.

One of the reasons I like TweetDeck (and several of its competitors) so much is that it makes social-network awareness easy. You can set up a console that shows you different columns for search results on multiple different queries, all at once. As your moods or needs change, you can turn on and off your queries.

For example, I run a "Webware 100" query when we're running the awards program; when I'm in the middle of covering a conference or tracking a hot news story, I set up queries for those items. I turn them off when the events wind down.

There's an old product category that desperately needs dashboard filters: e-mail. Sure, you can search in almost any e-mail product, and you can even save your searches so you can pop into them for quick peeks. Some e-mail clients, like Outlook, can also pop up alerts on screen when you get certain messages.

Neither of these solutions is quite right. What the heavy e-mail user needs is a way to quietly monitor incoming mail with desktop filters. And that's what the early-stage software experiment OutlookDeck does. Used correctly, it's a valuable productivity booster.

OutlookDeck looks like TweetDeck. It shows you multiple filtered columns of incoming items pulled from your Outlook e-mail app. It cannot replace the e-mail client itself, but it's a good tool to monitor your in-box for things important for you. For example, if you want to see all the messages about a project you're working on, or all mentions of a competitor, you can set up filters for those. (You can also use it to display your unfiltered in-box, but it's redundant for that purpose.)

The product was created by David Ing, who's been working on tools to improve e-mail since before this experiment. He previously wrote Taglocity, a system for reducing e-mail clutter in work groups by applying tags and filters to multiparty conversations.

OutlookDeck is very useful, even though its filters are coarse--you can't create complex queries, for example. And you can't save queries for later. It also does a poor job displaying text from e-mails that have HTML coding in them. But this small app does show how the constant social dialogue that people are getting accustomed to with Twitter, and Facebook, and FriendFeed is making its way into the hoary old communications medium of e-mail.

I like it. We are being barraged by streams of information, but with the right tools, it is possible to find a balance between getting too much information that takes too much of your attention, and not getting enough, which puts you out of touch in your own social airspace.

The popular multicolumn Twitter client TweetDeck got some serious competition last night, when Twhirl publisher Seesmic launched Seesmic Desktop, a direct competitor. But this morning TweetDeck shot back with a new version that addresses some of the issues the Seesmic said it was winning on.

The biggest change is better memory management. It's an under-the-hood fix, but it addresses a major complaint about the app--that it can eat away at system resources and drag down a whole computer. The TweetDeck blog says, "The memory leak has been plugged and now the latest version of TweetDeck will peak at a certain level and won't go any higher. So you can leave your TweetDeck running all day, all night, or forever if you really want to."

Last night, after I wrote a comparison of multicolumn Twitter clients, Seesmic CEO Loic Le Meur harangued me to attack TweetDeck on the memory management issue. He was right that it's an important topic.

TweetDeck is also getting Facebook support (it was available previously, but required the user download a special beta version). It's limited to displaying (and contributing to) the status feed, but it works well.

What's new, TweetDeck?

(Credit: TweetDeck)

The program is getting tighter integration with URL shortening services (you can optionally preview a link before pulling it up in a browser), with Twitpic (images are displayed in the app), and with the video recording site 12Seconds (you can record videos directly from TweetDeck). By contrast, Seesmic Desktop doesn't yet have support for the competing video service Seesmic, although the older Twhirl app does.

There are other small but welcome improvements.

TweetDeck is still missing a major feature: It does not support multiple Twitter accounts. If you want to keep up with the replies to, or contribute to more than one Twitter account, you'll need a different app; I recommend Seesmic Desktop, Twhirl, and, for Mac users, Nambu.

WorldGaming, a site that allows console video game players to challenge each other to earn cash, announced Wednesday that it has officially launched to the public. Along with that announcement, the site has launched a 30-day online "launch party" that will give users the opportunity to join daily tournaments, earn cash, and receive sign-up bonuses.

WorldGaming allows users to challenge each other on genres like first-person shooters and sports games. The players add funds to their personal accounts and mutually decide how much cash to play for. After the game is over, WorldGaming verifies who won and awards the victor with the agreed-upon money taken from the loser's account. WorldGaming says the service is legal because it's a "game of skill."

Enterprise Content Management company Open Text, announced Wednesday that it has acquired digital media firm Vizible. According to the company, the addition of Vizible will help Open Text expand its digital media services and offer companies video, audio, graphics, and photography.

Open Text also plans to use Vizible's technology to help its clients syndicate their media content to consumers, businesses, and other customers over an open-standards platform. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Open Text will add the Vizible team to the company's Digital Media Group.

FreeWheel, a company that helps mobile app developers deliver advertisements, announced Wednesday that it has signed a deal with video site Joost to become the company's exclusive provider of video ads in the Joost iPhone app. The ads are now being displayed in the free Joost app.

A lot is happening on Facebook. Not only are your friends telling the world what's going on in their lives, but the social network itself is changing. It's more open now than before, thanks to the Facebook Connect program, and there are several good products that let you see Facebook data in new ways. You don't have to use Facebook.com to use Facebook anymore. Here are some of the best desktop applications.

The newbies: AIR apps

Seesmic for Facebook
An Adobe AIR app, Seesmic for Facebook (news) uses Facebook Connect to let you update your status and view friend status updates without surfing to the Facebook site. It's in beta testing, but it works as advertised: updating status is quick and easy, and whenever a friend updates their own status, it's there for me to see. It's a little buggy, but it was just released.

TweetDeck
TweetDeck is one of the most popular Twitter desktop clients, and now the app's developers are vying for Facebook dominance too. The upcoming version of TweetDeck lets you send a message just to Twitter, just to Facebook, or to both simultaneously. Once installed, the new version also includes a column displaying friends' status updates, and it offers the ability to chat with them via Facebook chat directly. The app isn't available to everyone just yet, but its public release is right around the corner.

Windows Apps

Facebook Desktop
A Windows-only app, Facebook Desktop provides real-time updates, lets you see wall posts, view messages, and read friend requests. It's one of the best-looking apps, too.

Facebook Photo Uploader
The folks at the Google Code Base have a neat little desktop app for Windows users that allows them to upload photos directly to Facebook and tag them before they get to the service. It's not the best-looking app, and it's a little buggy, but I'm impressed by its ease of use.

Lightweight and unobtrusive makes Tray a great app.

(Credit: Facebook)

Facebook Tray Notify
Sometimes, a desktop client just gets in the way. If you feel that way, turn to Facebook TrayNotify. It's a lightweight app that sits in your taskbar awaiting Facebook notifications. Once it receives them, alerts pop up, letting you know about the updates. If you want to act on them, you'll need to go to the Facebook site to do so.

FBLook
FBLook is useful, if you're an Outlook user. Besides filling you in on friends' status updates, you can update your own Facebook status, and see notifications and requests without going to the Facebook Web site--it all works within Outlook on your desktop. Although I'm running a Mac every day, I still use FBLook whenever I run my Windows machine. In fact, it's one of the first apps I fire up.

FBQuick
If you're looking for a nicely designed app that will work on your Windows PC and give you some of the best functionality around, look at FBQuick. The app sends you profile notifications, including tagged photos, pokes, and messages, but it doesn't allow you to update anything while on your desktop.

Fonebook
If you're an Outlook user, and you have a mobile phone that supports Outlook, check out the Fonebook app. Once installed on your desktop, the app will transfer your contacts and photos from Facebook to Outlook. The app copies a contact's photo, Facebook profile URL, the "About me" details, and status. That can then be synced with an Outlook-compatible phone so whenever someone calls, the person's picture and information will pop up on your mobile-phone screen.

Mac Apps

Dashboard Widget
Dashboard Widget gives you Facebook on your OS X Dashboard. It will display messages, pokes, friend requests, group invites, and other notifications. It updates whenever new notifications filter in.

Exporter for iPhoto couldn't be easier to use.

(Credit: Facebook)

Facebook Exporter for iPhoto
If you want to upload photos into Facebook, and you don't want to waste your time firing up Safari, use the Facebook Exporter for iPhoto. It's the best photo-uploading service for Macs. It allows you to find photos in iPhoto, tag them with your friends' names, add captions, and upload them as an album to your profile. It's incredibly easy to use.

FacebookSync
If you're an Address Book user, FacebookSync will automatically sync information from Facebook into your Apple Address Book. The service finds matches in your friends list and adds all their information, including name, address, phone number, and other data to your Address Book. It even adds their photos to the app.

Facile
If you simply want to update your status update or view all your friends' status updates, Facile for the Mac is a nice way to do it. It provides a simple interface showing your friends' profile pictures and latest status updates, and allows you to input your own updates above the list (it's a lot like Seesmic for Facebook).

FriendSaver
This is a Facebook screensaver. It finds your friends tagged in photos and starts displaying those in succession while your Mac is dormant. And if you want to take some friends out of the queue, you can filter them out with a simple click. Or just display your male or female friends.

PhotoBook
A Facebook photo browser for your Mac, PhotoBook allows you to manage, share, and view your friends' Facebook photos without ever going to their profile pages. All the photos are available on a single page, and they can be viewed by tags or in a slideshow. Every photo or album can be downloaded into iPhoto.

The others

Bloom makes it easy to add images.

(Credit: Facebook)

Bloom
Bloom, available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, allows you to upload photos, download other albums, and view your friends' photos without surfing to Facebook pages. A recent update allows you to add captions to images, rotate them before you upload, and tag different people. It has a simple drag-and-drop interface.

Drag-and-Drop Uploader
If you don't want all the extras that Bloom provides, Drag-and-Drop Uploader (for Windows) makes it simple to add images to your Facebook profile. The service is lightweight, and in a matter of seconds, you can drag photos from your desktop and add them to the app, which will then be uploaded into albums in your profile.

DeskBook
The Windows app DeskBook allows you to access Facebook features and information without accessing your profile page. Regardless of whether you want to see how many notes you've received, how many friend requests you've ignored, or if you want to just search for friends, DeskBook does it all. It even lets you accept or reject group and event invitations, as well as friend requests. It's my go-to app when I want to get the full Facebook experience without going to my profile page.

Facedesk
There's not much to Facedesk, but that is its appeal. The app can be downloaded to your desktop, and it runs Facebook directly in the app instead of your browser. Yes, it acts like a browser, but it runs only Facebook, so you won't be able to open any other sites. It's Facebook for people who care about nothing else in the world.

Flair
Flair's functionality won't blow you away--it's a notification app that lets you know when a friend wants to add you, or you receive a poke--but it does that in a lightweight bundle that doesn't hog resources, and it offers one of the best designs of any app in this roundup. It's not unique, but it sure is pretty.

Zebr
AIR app Zebr allows you to update your status without going to your profile page, and it keeps track of your friends' status automatically.

St. Patrick's Day is a popular day for "celebrations" and realizing that, Boost Mobile has those who want to party covered. According to the company, it will offer the #TAXI feature on all Boost Mobile phones free of charge on St. Patrick's Day. Upon dialing #-8-2-9-4, Boost Mobile users will be connected automatically to the first available cab company in their area. The feature will work in over 2,000 Boost Mobile network coverage areas. The service will only be free Tuesday.

Mint.com, an online personal finance service, announced Monday that it added its 1 millionth user Sunday. According to the company, it was able to add 1 million users in just 18 months, making it the first personal finance service to add that many users in the period. Mint is now tracking over $50 billion in transactions and $15 billion in assets.

Visual search company, Quintura, announced Monday that it has secured context-based search visualization patents to ensure it has the most "interactive" search service on the Web. The company hopes that it will be the competitive advantage it needs going forward.

TweetDeck, a desktop Twitter app, has launched version 0.24, which includes "the first elements of Facebook integration." According to the company, users will be able to see friend status updates, which are updated automatically each month and they will also be able to post messages to Twitter or Facebook within the Tweet window. The release isn't available for everyone, but it will be rolled out once it's tested. So far, there is no timetable for that release.

People search site, 123people, has expanded into new markets, including Switzerland, France, and Spain. It's now also available in six languages, including, English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Catalan. The new versions of the site are available now.