by Brian Solis

Seesmic’s Loic Le Meur shot at Mashable’s Open Web Awards

Rumor has it that we’re going to see an announcement that Seesmic has acquired Twhirl, an AIR Client developed by Marco Kaiser that brings Twitter to the desktop.

I don’t have the specifics…but Mark Hendrickson over at TechCrunch has also heard about the deal.

Twhirl is one of the hottest third-party applications for Twitter and according to ReadWriteWeb, it is the third most used app for reading and posting.

The deal makes sense for many reasons even though Seesmic updates already appear on Twitter and thus Twhirl. My initial thought, as discussing with Chris Heuer, is that Seesmic is looking to develop an elegant desktop app, and having a head start on AIR development, could greatly benefit the emerging “video” Twitter.

Perhaps I’ll reach out to Cathy Brooks if she’s around tonight to help shed light on the story.

UPDATE: Loic confirms the rumor.

According to his post, here are 20 ways it will benefit the Seesmic community:

-Staying in touch with your friends using microblogging is much easier using a client than through your browser

-Thwirl is the #1 and coolest Twitter client with more than 100,000 downloads and 7% of all tweets posted per day

-Thousands of new users download Twhirl daily

-Twhirl works on Mac AND PC, soon on Linux too

-Twhirl lets you easily use all the advanced messaging options of Twitter (replies, direct messages)

-Twhirl added very cool features such as search and url shortening in a second

-Twhirl allows you to have multiple Twitter accounts opened simultaneously

-Twhirl not only posts on Twitter but also on Pownce and Jaiku, with more services coming soon

-Seesmic and Twhirl have been created exactly the same way, by listening to their communities and adding new features according to their popularity

-Twhirl has amazing feedback from its users and press coverage: Thwirl was just on Fox News

-We got in touch entirely through using Twitter and Twhirl… how cool is that? Okay, we also used Skype a bit to close the deal

-most of Seesmic team and investors constantly use Twhirl, made things easy!

-Marco was already in the process of adding Seesmic support to Twhirl. That is how we got together and thought about him joining in, not the other way round

-Adding video to Twhirl will be a plus to the Twhirl community. It will remain optional — we won’t break it!

-Twhirl is free and will remain free

-Marco has the same international vision, already supporting english, german, spanish and italian (hey where is french!)

-With Twhirl being based in Germany, Seesmic now has a presence there which will help with the German version and community

-Marco will have more means to improve Twhirl as he will join Seesmic full-time and will be able to utilize the Seesmic’s support and infrastructure

-We are only at the beginning of microblogging, the space is very exciting and new

-Marco Kaiser is super cool and it is all about people

Connect with me on Twitter, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Pownce, Plaxo, FriendFeed, or Facebook.