by Michelle Lentz

Seesmic Desktop launched in previews yesterday. I just got my hands on it and I love it. Seesmic Desktop was created by the same folks who created Twhirl, and seems poised to give Tweetdeck a run for its money.

I know, I installed Nambu the other day and was thrilled too. I’m fickle. Not only is this a bit more stable than Nambu, it gives me the same features but includes those bonus things I liked so much in Twhirl. Seesmic listened closely to the Twhirl users and incorporated what we asked for: columns, groups, and one Home column, and search.

Seesmic Desktop is an Adobe Air app, so it will run on both your PC and your Mac. Like Tweetdeck, you can have multiple columns. But like Twhirl – and Nambu – you can condense to one column plus a list. Each item in the list can be displayed as its own column and the columns can be arranged via drag and drop. Twhirl takes the one column a bit further than Nambu, however, integrating both of my Twitter accounts into the same Home column, which is nice. It’s like having one inbox for all of your email accounts.

Of course, you still have the option to view multiple Twitter accounts separately, whether in the single column format or in multiple columns. You can filter by Userlists (Seesmic’s name for groups). In the screen capture above, I’ve created a Userlist for my Girlfriends, so I can see what they’re up to at any given point without missing anything. You can also create and save searches. A search displays in a separate column that pops open and closed with a single click.

URLs can be shortened using bit.ly, the new digg.com shortener, and is.gd. Photos can be shared with just drag and drop and then sent to TwitPic.There’s even an option to pull a photo from your webcam.

Common little things about this make me happy. For instance, I set the notifications (like in Twhirl) to only appear when I receive a direct message or Reply/Mention. I’ll also only hear a sound when those things happen.

Currently, Seesmic Desktop only supports Twitter. Do one thing and do it well, I suppose. That said, Twhirl supports FriendFeed, so that could possibly be in the future. I also recently wrote about the Seesmic Facebook client, which I suspect may also get integrated into this application. But this is still a preview release, so it smartly sticks to its objective of excelling at Twitter. I also wish it had threaded replies like Nambu, but again, this is a preview version.

What about Twhirl? VentureBeat noted that someone in the audience at the release inquired after Twhirl support:

Also interesting is that when a person in the audience asked if Seesmic would continue to support Twhirl as a separate product, LeMeur clearly didn’t want to come out and say it, but it would seem that Seesmic Desktop will be the area of focus going forward. He noted that Twhirl is hard to say, hard to spell and that it doesn’t own the “.com” domain for it.

Sign up for Team Seesmic to access the Seesmic Desktop Preview.

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Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
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