TweetDeck by Twitter

"I feel the need — the need for speed!"
Top Gun

You may have thought that scorching through your Twitter feeds at the speed of an F-14 fighter jet was reserved for just the Mavericks of the world, with their Bomber jackets, Aviator sunglasses and User Stream TweetDecks. And, until today, you would have been right. 

But today's the day when everything changes.

You don't need a fighter jet. You don't need Goose in your back seat. You don't even need Kenny Loggins on the stereo.

All you need is to upgrade to the new, consolidated, all-in-one, turbo-charged-by-default TweetDeck v0.36.

The Story so far...

A long time ago in a galaxy - oops sorry, wrong film!

Back in July, Twitter enabled testing of a new way for third party clients to access the service in true real-time. This User Streams API allowed instant delivery of tweets, as opposed to the old API which relied on clients regularly checking for new tweets every few minutes.

To coincide with this launch we introduced a new version of TweetDeck that offered Twitter streams in awesome real-time. Recently, Twitter made the User Streams API fully live, at which point we removed the whitelist from our User Streams TweetDeck version and made it downloadable without having to signup.

Today we are completing the process by finally combining the User Streams Preview version of TweetDeck and the "original" version, to make one consolidated app that can switch between streaming and non-streaming at the flick of a switch.

So now, whether you're a Top Gun or just a top cat, thre is just one version of TweetDeck for you. Simple!

Afterburners are ON

Once you install v0.36, you will be automatically using real-time streaming for Twitter. In this way you can experience first-hand what it means to use TweetDeck in true real-time.

If, however, you dont feel like you can cope with the high-octane, utlimate Twitter experience, then you can easily go back to non-real-time Twitter streams by navigating to Settings > Twitter and unchecking the Enable realtime Twitter streaming checkbox.

With real-time streaming disabled, your TweetDeck will operate just as it previously did. If you change your mind and want to re-enable streaming, just turn this setting back on and your updates will start flowing at top speed once again.

Hints for new recruits

You can't just expect to jump into your F-14 and start buzzing the tower without a few pointers. So here are a few key articles from our support site that should help you understand some of the finer points of streaming updates in TweetDeck.

• Twitter may throttle your search results under certain circumstances
• Searches have slightly different rules - here are some tips
• You might want to reduce the amount of popup notifications - read about how TweetDeck batches notifications when streaming
• You can see when you get added to Lists in your New Followers column
• When someone favourites your tweet, you will be notified in your Mentions column
• Twitter does not yet include Lists in the Streaming API. Voice your support for them to be included here

Other than that, just strap yourself in and enjoy Twitter the way it was meant to be - in TweetDeck and in true real-time!

Not only very cool but *very important* too

Although bringing User Streams into the main app is, in itself, a very cool feature, there is also a very important change in v0.36 that makes this a vital upgrade for everyone.

Twitter is switching to a new way of assigning unique identifiers to each tweet in it's database. This new method, dubbed "Snowflake", has forced us to make some fundamental changes behind the scenes in TweetDeck.  

The result of all this techno-jiggery-pokery is that you *must* update to at least v0.36 urgently. If you have not upgraded before 24th November then your TweetDeck will start going very wrong.

Don't say we didn't warn you! :)

Oh, and one more thing...

Also in this build is a bit of very special TweetDeck magic....

We're not letting on exactly what this magic does just yet, but we can tell you that it opens the door to some very exciting cross-platform TweetDeck communication.

Watch this space, Decksters. You're going to love it!

I think it’s fair to say that the reaction to our User Streams Preview version of TweetDeck was extremely positive.

TechCrunch called it “Crack for Real-time Web Junkies”. The Next Web summarised their experience succinctly as “Twitter in real time. Mind. Blown."

The world of Twitter at true real-time really is a new and exciting place, with Tweets and alerts flying in at lightning speed, making your conversations more like instant messaging rather than asynchronous postings.

When we initially launched our User Streams Preview version we had to put in place a strict whitelisting procedure. The Twitter User Streams Preview API is still very new and we had to be very cautious about our rollout. This was in order to allow the boffins at Twitter HQ to monitor the capacity of their systems and ensure that everything didn’t go up in a puff of blue smoke once we turned our app over to the public.

Well, it seems that everything is going well at their end. So well, in fact, that they are ready to let us extend the preview to anyone that would like to try it!

So, from now on, you can just download the User Streams Preview TweetDeck through its dedicated page at http://www.tweetdeck.com/streaming/ or directly from http://www.tweetdeck.com/go/userstream. No sign-up. No waiting. Just install, run, and hop on The Deck at full-speed.

During the limited preview period we have been constantly improving, refining and ironing out the kinks to bring you the best real-time Twitter experience to date. However, this is still a preview product, so things may still break and change, but we think the advantages that you gain by having true real-time Twitter feeds makes this an essential download for anyone serious about being ahead of the game on Twitter.

These days you hear a lot of talk about “The Real-Time Web”, with instant delivery of information to your desktop from across the globe. But in reality, many services are not actually operating in real-time.

Take the example of most desktop Twitter clients. If @aplusk choses to tweet some hints about his latest blockbuster movie, his gazillions of followers won’t receive this message straight away; They will have to wait until their Twitter client fetches the next batch of updates from the Twitter API. Depending on current API limits, this could take a couple of minutes - and in a world where sometimes 3000 tweets per second are being generated, that could feel like a long time.

However, all is not lost...

Twitter recently announced a “developer preview” of their User Streams API. This preview version of their API is not generally available yet, but is currently being tested by some of the biggest users of the Twitter API, including TweetDeck of course. The User Streams API works differently to the original, poll-based API in that apps no longer have to check for updates on a regular interval. Instead, an app will open what is, in theory (but almost certainly not literally), a big pipe from Twitter to the app. Then, when Ashton hits Send on his latest tweet, that tweet gets pushed straight down the big pipe and lands in your Twitter client instantly.

That’s real “Real Time”.

And its not only tweets that get the supercharged treatment. Other actions that are relevant to you are also brought immediately to your attention. For example, if someone follows you - WOOSH, it’s there. If someone favourites one of your tweets - BAM, straight into your Mentions. Oh and discovering new people to follow is made a lot easier with the addition of an option to see @replies from your friends to other people that you don’t follow. This is a big change from the standard behaviour where you only see replies to people that you actually follow.

And of course, what better way to consume this true real-time feed than via an experimental version of TweetDeck for Desktop?

We have been working closely with Twitter to develop a version of TweetDeck that makes use of their User Streams API and we are delighted to announce that we are now in a position to open this up to a very limited public preview.

Now, before you all go crazy hitting the download link and getting giddy with excitement, there are some important things you need to know.

1. This is a VERY experimental version of TweetDeck
2. You need to sign-up with a TweetDeck account in order to use it
3. Initially only 5000 TweetDeck accounts will be granted access.
4. There may be problems, changes, disruptions and other issues that could affect the operation of this version of TweetDeck.
5. If you wish to stop using this version of TweetDeck, you will need to uninstall it and reinstall the latest “live” version from www.tweetdeck.com

If you want to help us test out this cool new version of TweetDeck, please visit the sign-up page at https://www.tweetdeck.com/api/stream_whitelist.

Once signed-up, we will then send you an email when we are ready to enable your access, which will include a link to download the new client.

You can then start sampling your Twitter feed in TweetDeck at the speed of "Wow!".