Seesmic Desktop has always been in the running for top Twitter client, but their latest release goes well beyond a simple interface for Twitter. After about a year of development, they have released something that is powerful, extensible, and nice to look at. Seesmic Founder Loic Le Meur describes the new Seesmic Desktop as the first “platform for platforms.”
When Seesmic acquired Ping.fm, I had hoped it would be for the better. While Ping.fm lets you broadcast your message across the entire social web, Seesmic Desktop 2 now makes it easy to listen as well. You can aggregate all of your social media activities in one place with the ability to respond and interact with what you see. This has been attempted in the past, but never executed very well.
Seesmic Desktop 2’s power lies in their app store. Developers can download an SDK and develop plugins for SD2 which may appear in its online marketplace. Besides standard services like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Buzz, users can now access Google Reader, YouTube, Techmeme, Formspring, and more right inside the SD2 interface.
Not only can plugins give you access to new feeds of data, but they are also capable of changing the existing interface. For example, the Klout plugin adds tiny icons within your feed that lets you check anyone’s Klout score without skipping a beat. Picture Previewer lets you preview images online with an option to click through and see the full image.
Using Twitter’s Stream API, SD2 pulls in your tweets in realtime. No more refreshing, delays, or floods of tweets. Desktop notifications make sure you don’t miss anything. There are now 40+ plugins in the marketplace for you to play with. Everything is free at this point, but Le Meur says developers will have the option to charge some time next year.
If you’re primarily on the move and use your mobile most of the time, don’t fret. Le Meur says many of these features will soon be available on Android, iPhone, and Windows 7. Of course, because the user interface is Silverlight, Windows 7 will come first.
Take Seesmic Desktop 2 for a spin and tell us what you think. What plugins or features are missing? What makes it most useful to you?
via TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb