TweetDeck launched a new minor revision today and given all the hype it had yesterday, I was little skeptical. After watching the detailed video on what the new features are, I was most impressed by the little changes than I was the major ones. Here is a video showing my 3 favorite new features:

1. Translate feature – I never thought I’d like this feature but the speed and convenience of it makes me want to use it more. One can easily (and I do stress easily) convert your tweets to another language OR translate an existing tweet to your language.
2. Shorten URL tweak – Often in TweetDeck, I’d forget to click the “Shorten” button after putting a URL in the “Shorten URL” box. TweetDeck added a little fix that will automatically shorten a URL in the box when you post the tweet. Little things
3. #Hashtag tweak – Finally, when you reply to someone who has a hashtag in their tweet, the same hashtag is automatically appended to your reply.

It all boils down to the little things. If only Adobe Air would solve their memory issues, TweetDeck would be a must have for everyone. I like the client so much that I restart it every other hour to compensate. At any rate, good job @TweetDeck on a finely tuned minor release!

Follow me on Twitter, I’m @Bwana.

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• Twitter 2008: Get Used To It (Goodbye IM/Track)
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• Newsvine Improves Its Features

Last month, I blogged my return to Twitter due to the fact that the Track feature was dead. I saw the responses Twitter gave Steve Gillmor at Bearhug camp and determined they were prolonging the obvious: Track is dead, and they’re not bringing it back.

Yesterday, I learned that Twitter has officially gone on record to say that their Instant Messaging (IM) feature is not coming back. (in so many words):

To summarize, we want to bring IM back. We intend to bring IM back. But we’ve officially moved it from our Things That are Broken list to our Things We Want to Build list. Based on our analysis, the cost-to-benefit for IM for the most users is not as high as some other things—so it will be a while before we tackle it. Like any budget (in this case, the budget of our limited engineering time), tough calls need to be made—especially in these times. And while we don’t expect everyone to agree with this decision, we at least want to be straightforward with you.

Translation: Don’t count on IM coming back, ever. Steve Gillmor doesn’t sound surprised by the announcement since I believe he shares the same pessimism with me regarding IM/Track at Twitter. ReadWriteWeb thinks IM will possibly be back next spring. I believe that’s a very optimistic view.

If you must have IM/Track functionality, there are a couple of options available:

• Follow TweetTrak and send direct messages on terms you want to track. It will send you responses via direct message.
• TwitterSpy is a popular option (I use IdentiSpy for tracking on identi.ca). It is an XMPP jabber bot with lots of features.

Twitter’s stance on IM re-emphasizes my goal of rediscovering how to best utilize Twitter. Since my return, I’ve been using TweetDeck and TwitterSpy with some success. This is my current method of utilizing Twitter:

• TweetDeck to do non-realtime tracking of terms using their search feature. I also use TweetDeck to track replies, and keywords related to my websites and me.
• TwitterSpy for some interests such as mobile phone news, Apple, web 2.0 topics
• Twinkle on my iPhone for mobile Twittering
• Twitter through Ping.FM for general blast messages

I’m still clinging to Track by using TwitterSpy, but I find it to be more reliable than TweetDeck’s search implementation. Once TweetDeck becomes more reliable, I can get away from using IM completely.

So this is the new Twitter folks. I say we start getting used to it, adapt, and adjust.

Related posts:

• The Reason Why I Returned to Twitter: Track is Dead
• After 4 Months, Has Twitter Improved?
• My Twitter-Fu is Better Than Yours