So I finally got the New Twitter web client opened up to me today. Unfortunately on an account I don't really use. So I have not really been able to put it through the ringer on my personal account, but played enough to get a general idea. My first impression is - It's good.
I think it works great for a personal account (or could with minor tweaks). I like it a lot better than using something like Seesmic web or even a desktop app (like Seesmic2 or Tweetdeck). It's the closest thing to the Twitter iPad app, which is hands down the best Twitter experience for a personal account. It can definitely get better though, and here is where I need it to start:
1. Pop ups on mentions. Seesmic's web app and Google Calendar both use Chrome's ability to display pop ups when you have a new message. Twitter needs this. With sound.
2. This is what will stop me from leaving Seesmic web possibly. It needs better visual separation of unread tweets, as well as the ability to stay on the last tweet you read when you refresh.
I actually read my entire Twitter feed most of the time, on my personal account. I keep the people I follow to a manageable level. So this won't probably apply to a lot of people that follow thousands. NewTwitter currently does not load new tweets, but instead tells you at the top how many new tweets are waiting. Once you click on this - it loads the new tweets. I would prefer that it just auto updated new tweets in, but I can live with having to refresh it myself, which is easily done with a keyboard shortcut (hitting the period). Problem is - the keyboard shortcut refreshes the stream then takes you to the top of your feed to the most recent tweet. Skipping over all the new tweets that came in between the last one you read and the most recent. I would rather it refresh everything above, but leave me where I was when I hit refresh. So once I refresh - I can work my way up the stream again. Basically I want Twitter to load the new tweets above me, out of my view.
I keep Twitter open in a tab at all times. So if it's been an few hours since you checked in, and you refresh, you have to scroll way down to find where you had left off. But making matters worse - there is no visual representation showing where you left off. Old Twitter used to at least darken the divider line between the last tweet you read and the oldest new tweet. So you could see where you left off. NewTwitter does not do this. The work around is - you have to remember to select the tweet you last read before hitting the refresh keyboard shortcut. This will still whisk you up to the top of the feed, but will at least leave your place marked down below so you can scroll down to it.
So if I could get a "refresh and don't move" option - that would keep me on here and leaving Seesmic Web behind, for my personal account. I would still need Tweetdeck or Seesmic Desktop running in the background for searches and for other accounts. This really does nothing for those monitoring keywords or watching over brands. NewTwitter is designed for the casual user. The Facebook user. And more or less - I think they succeeded.
3. My pie in the sky request? Keep my reading location in the stream synced across NewTwitter and Twitter for iPhone and iPad. When I log into each one, ask if I want to go to my furthest location from a previous session. Similar to what the Kindle App does. That way if the last time I checked Twitter was around lunch, when I get home and fire up the iPad, it takes me to where I left off.
So it sounds like I'm complaining - but over all I'm pleased with it. Just a couple tweaks and I would love it. The embedding of media, the right hand info pane when you click on a tweet, keyboard shortcuts. There is a lot to like and it's a big improvement over the previous version. Which I considered pretty much unusable.
