Chez Moncef

Earlier this week, I decided to try 2 Twitter desktop clients: TweetDeck (the most popular) and Nambu (brand new OS X app). In my book, Nambu is the clear winner. Here are the winning points for each:

TweetDeck:

• Facebook integration (coming soon in Nambu - it’s #1 on their new features list).
• ability to move columns in the wide view (Nambu is working on it).

Nambu:

• Growl notification, so you can actually see the sender and content of the message, rather than the generic message that TweetDeck displays in its notification system.


• conversation threading, even for those you don’t participate in (as long as you are following both users).


• autocomplete of users you follow when composing a new tweet.


• support for more than one Twitter account.


• you can add a user to an existing group as well as create a new group for that user all via the same right-click. In TweetDeck, adding a user to an existing group requires 3 clicks. Adding a user to a new group requires a totally separate set of actions.


• speaking of usability and design, I cannot for the life of me understand TweetDeck’s implementation of column closing. When you click the “X” at the top right of any column, you are presented with the following prompt: “Do you really want to delete [column name] column? (this action cannot be undone - choose wisely)”. That’s three warnings in one. Do they not know the meaning of the word ”undone”? Why would they make it sound like you’re gonna lose that column forever when all you have to do to bring it back is click on its corresponding icon in the top left menu? That prompt should not even exist in the first place. You can’t click on the “X” by accident. If I click it, it’s because I want to close the column. And that’s exactly what Nambu does.


• native OS X app.


• very low memory consumption: about 6 times less than TweetDeck (26.6 MB vs 162.2 MB as I’m writing this).


• launches and displays all your columns in 2 seconds vs. 5 seconds for TweetDeck. And that’s if TweetDeck actually displays the content. I just quit and relaunched the app twice and it’s not displaying anything inside the columns. There’s a message at the bottom right that reads: “Twitter Status: Rate limit exceeded”.


• FriendFeed, identi.ca and Ping.fm integration.


• 3 views vs. 2 for TweetDeck.


• a feedback forum on their site where users can request features. The Nambu folks actually read those suggestions and report back with the status, such as “planned” and “under review”.