So then, new Tweetdeck…ugh. Usually software is supposed to get better not have useful features cut, or at least, that’s what I thought.

Let’s start at the top. The platform (or at least the installer) no longer runs on Adobe Air, it’s now some windows installer. Whether that is a good thing or not I am not sure, depends if the change means the program will become more vulnerable to being tracked by IT or able to be breached with any potential OS flaws.

When it loads it now occupies a permanent slot on the toolbar and taskbar. Previously I was able to have just the icon in the taskbar making it far less obvious I had Twitter updates flying by in the background if I was sharing my screen (especially as Win 7 allows you to hide icons on the taskbar too).

Clicking the X to close the app is no longer customisable, previously you could choose to minimize app to the taskbar, useful for those moments when the CEO circles your desk. Now it just closes the app completely.

It was customisable where shortened links used to bring up a screen showing you the full URL that it led to, now it opens in a new browser window immediately upon clicking. This means I’ll be going back to not trusting short URLs anymore unless I 100% trust the poster as being savvy enough not to link to a dodgy site or giving enough info about the link to warrant a visit.  This was one of the best features imo, why it has been removed befuddles me.

Removed a couple of versions ago was the deck.ly functionality which allowed you to post more then 140chars with a shortURL to the full post.  Whilst I understand why Twitter (now owners of Tweetdeck) might want to force the 140char limit – succinct messages being kinda the point of Twitter, I suppose – it was a useful feature and stopped the horrible ‘multi-tweet’ where the user now just breaks the message out over several tweets instead (particularly painful during a busy timeline).

Lack of settings shows a heavily depleted version of what used to be a great app.

The custom colourisation feature is missing now, so no more cunningly colouring the Tweetdeck UI to look similar to other applications open on the desktop. The whole settings area is completely stripped back to offer very little in tems of customisation.

A number of media items, pictures, etc used to open up in the Tweetdeck client, now they open in the default browser. Irritating when I have my web-apps open full-screen in IE and then a much smaller window in a script-blocked, ad-blocked FF for the odd checkup on news, links etc.  It wouldn’t be so bad but there isn’t even a right-click option to copy the URL, instead I now have to highlight the URL and CTRL+C/CTRL+V into a safe browser. Having someones photo open up full-screen on the second monitor isn’t what I’m looking for from a discreet twitter client.

Basically this seems to be an attempt to coax people back into the browser version of Twitter. Meh, Tweetdeck Fail and other such memes…