The Future Of Twitter Clients – What Features Do You Wish Your Twitter Clients Supported?

Corvida Raven

See the original article on my personal blog SheGeeks.net

Daniel Crenna, a Microsoft MVP, recently expressed his thoughts on why Twitter clients don’t matter in the long-run. According to Daniel, the focus could shift from clients to applications in the true sense of the word: “unique software that solves a particular need, whether broad or niche.”

While I don’t disagree with Daniel on whether Twitter clients don’t matter, he’s helped me define why Twitter Clients will continue TO matter. It’s because of the next steps they are poised to take:

“I think Twitter clients really do matter. Web apps are great. They’re portable and once you’re done with them you can simply sign-out and move on. However, that could lead to users constantly hopping from place to place just access one application. Would you rather do that or just live in ONE Twitter client?

I think Twitter clients will eventually evolve into social networking clients, making them far more important than standalone applications, or features.”

This is a comment I left on Daniel’s post. 

The Open Client Platform

Social Networks In the next level, things will surely become a race of who can conglomerate the most apps in the most visually appealing client. However, those that started as Twitter clients are no longer just Twitter clients. They’re dipping into other prominent and bubbling social networks such as Facebook and FriendFeed.

That’s because it’s not just about the features or the apps. Sometimes people just want an easier way to tap into their network. Other times, people just want one place to use their most common apps for their favorite social networks. Twitter clients solve this now and save a lot of tab space in my web browser while doing it.

Which only makes me wonder if these clients will eventually become branded as social networking clients or something along those lines…

What Do YOU Think?

What do you think is the next level for Twitter clients?

  • How do you think Twitter clients will evolve?
  • What new features do you hope to see Twitter clients integrate?
  • What apps will eventually get lost in the midst of things?

Category: Uncategorized | Tags: , , View Comments

  • I have been tweeting only weeks and my site visitors are up substantially based solely on putting my website in my bio. Have not done any marketing yet.
    http://www.jobstcompressionsoc...
  • I'm not sure if this is an actual feature yet, but I know that I'd personally like to have alerts sent to my cell phone via text message whenever one of my favorite members makes a new tweet. Is this even an option? If so how do I access it?
  • From mobile, send text to (Twitter) 40404
    track 'username'
  • What I would like to see is a web-based client that is a combination Twitter client, RSS reader, Facebook stream reader, YouTube subscriptions reader, etc. (insert as many social networks as you like here). I would like to see a single service that accesses all of these services' APIs to combine everything that I want into a single "river of news" format and allow me to interact with the items inline. For example, I should be able to @reply tweets or "link" facebook updates or comment on YouTube videos from within the client. Obviously, some of this functionality is limited by the constraints of the APIs, but I think that the future of social network clients is in consolidating items from disparate social networks into a single place for reading and interacting with them.
  • There are a large # of Twitter clients available today, as I've learned with the 2009 #topclient vote (see here to vote:

    http://johnfmoore.wordpress.co...

    The key for all of these clients is to provide:

    - Robust search capabilities.
    - Basic analytics and BI support to enable end-users to better utilize the tools for marketing and sales success.
    - Multi-language support with on the fly translation capabilities.

    While there is a much longer list than what I've provided above, these are the most important capabilities.
  • metalworker
    What's a twitter client? I have glanced at the comments, all heavy, go with it don't lose it. Be happy
  • technogran
    I think that you need to take a look at Flock browser. This has been available since long before any of these 'Twitter clients' that you speak of, and this is to my knowledge the only application where you can see all and I mean all your social networks in one place AND interact with them. Its been around at least two years or more.
  • This may be a side point, but as all-in-one client apps develop, I'll be curious to see how it effects actual site development. By that I mean, as more and more people use apps like Nambu, Tweetdeck and Digsby, will their visits to the original site drop off, and if so, what incentive would there be to develop it further?
  • In Twitter's case, the medium is worth more than the message.

    Twitter has always made it possible to circumvent the site entirely thanks to SMS tweets, So any strategy of theirs would likely involve adding new features and/or charging for a development kit.

    ... Or they could auction off "suggested users" spots like crazy. There's enough idiots out there willing to pay for more followers.
  • Ha ha. This is so very true.
  • carla
    I want a 30 second uh oh delay so after I press update I can fix all my typos and dropped words
  • I'm definitely someone who sees the value of Twitter, but I also recognize its weaknesses -- namely, that a lot of information can get lost in the churn. Until a proper twitter synthesizer comes along, no amount of filtering will help.

    Some features I'd like to see in said synthesizer?

    - A review of previous links posted by a given user (perhaps with screencaps / previews of the sites linked to so you didn't have to go hunt for them)

    - twitpic integration in that same stream (so instead of showing a screencap of the twitpic site with the pic, you see a thumbnail of the pic itself)

    - recent #hashtags or @references

    Basically, an easier visualization for vetting / reading different users at a glance from more than just tweets.
  • I have to wonder if we'll see more apps like Digsby that literally tie 5 or more social networking platforms together.
  • technogran
    Take a look at www.flock.com been around for 2 yes 2 years!
  • jeremy
    common sense is it not?
  • Google "Metamee" and you'll see my thoughts (in 7 posts!) on the ideal web/social interface.
  • I'd like a (portable) Twitter client that becomes the hub of my online stream, inlcuding email. Until everybody moves away from email to micro-sharing media, I'd like to be able to use my Twitter client to check and send email. Have my emails pulled into a TwetDeck-like column (have subject with the tiny url to the body of email in the tweet). Also the ability to email tweets or redirect them via DM (versus the standard RT).

    I'd also like a client that enables options to view content of tweets (similar to Power Twitter or how FriendFeed's stream works). For example, I'd like my RSS activity to be viewable on the Twitter client (option to see just the feed title, excerpt or full text). Right now on Twitter, any feeds I follow only give me the link. I'd like the option to view my feed content right within my client.

    Actually, now that I type this, I think I'd like a sweet FriendFeed client (I'd imagine that FF's API offers even more potential power than Twitter's).

    There's tons of mashups for an uber Twitter/FF client. So: who's gonna build me one?
  • technogran
    There already is such an application! Its called Flock and its a browser (but you can just stay on the Home page so same thing) here at www.flock.com. Take a look and amazingly enough its been available for over two years. Set all your stuff up in it, see your RSS feeds,friends updates from Facebook,flickr,picasa,myspace,twitter,your e-mails from yahoo,gmail,aol,your favourite sites you visit,see your friends pictures as soon as they update them in flickr,see updated vids from youtube etc,drag and drop a picture or text from an website and send it to your friends in the peoples sidebar! All of it! there is no appication like it!
  • Guest
    Features should include full page scrolling, the ability to view tweets with the newest tweets at the bottom (as opposed to reading from the bottom up), and instead of Growl, menu bar, or pop-up notifications, the app should be able to automatically become to active front app when new tweets arrive.
  • Any Twitter client should have the ability to integrate the open-source identi.ca/laconi.ca support, That way we shouldn't experience any downtime at Twitter.
blog comments powered by Disqus

↑ Back to top