Social media is a vital tool for businesses and agencies operating online. It allows you to connect to customers in a timely and direct manner. It makes customer service better and it makes building your brand and rapport with customers much easier. It’s also fairly cheap to utilize, and there’s always the chance of an interaction on Twitter or Facebook getting popular or even going viral, giving you tons of PR. The latest from Twitter is a bit unfortunate; the company is getting rid of a popular app for using the platform.
TweetDeck on the Way Out
According to Donna Tam at CNet, “Twitter is shutting down the TweetDeck apps for Android and iPhone, as well as axing the adobe AIR desktop version.” The news broke late yesterday afternoon pacific time on the TweetDeck blog.
TweetDeck has been an extremely popular app for managing Twitter for individuals, businesses, and agencies. Not only does it help with Twitter, it also integrates Facebook posts as well, giving you greater control of your social media presence in one spot. But as Matthew Panzarino reports for The Next Web, “tucked away in the blog post is a notice that TweetDeck will also lose integration with Facebook completely.”
The news that the very popular TweetDeck will be no longer accessible or usable for the time being “was met largely with a chorus of “noooooooo,” “whyyyyy” and “gaaaaaaaah” on social media” as Sam Laird reports for Mashable. TweetDeck was obviously a popular and well-loved app for those who used Twitter heavily.
Is Twitter Closing its Ecosystem?
Twitter made a point to state in their blog that they “are going to focus [their] development efforts on our modern, web-based versions of TweetDeck.” They are discontinuing the mobile apps and the TweetDeck AIR in favor of providing a consistent service for mobile and desktop users.
When Twitter bought TweetDeck in 2011 they knew what they were doing. Implementing everything that makes TweetDeck great is definitely a good direction for Twitter to head in. Making all of the features inherent to Twitter no matter how you access it is less about closing their ecosystem and more about creating a better one.
Twitter is basing these changes on the “steady trend towards people using TweetDeck on their computers and Twitter on their mobile devices.” They also have plans to move on from the API v1.0 which will be retired this month. Going web-based initially allows anyone to use the features of TweetDeck no matter their platform, and a Chrome app is their first example of this, followed by Mac and PC apps in the near future.
Alternatives While You Wait
Starting today TweetDeck users will be having less-than-ideal service, and may even experience blackouts and outages of their service. This will likely just be a small bump in the road for everyone except those that have become incredibly reliant and accustomed to the apps or ARI. If Twitter’s new offering doesn’t cut it for you or if you want to wait and see, there are alternatives out there for managing social media. They’re worth checking out.
What do you think about Twitter’s changes to TweetDeck? Is it a bump in the road or a serious inconvenience?