Open letter to Tweetdeck

Twitter, Inc.
1355 Market St, Suite 900
San Francisco, CA 94103

To whom it may concern;

On March 4th 2013, a representative of your company, Twitter, INC. Posted on the blog of your microblogging application "Tweetdeck."

This post stated that Twitter, INC. Will be forcing users who still prefer the older, "Adobe Air" Tweetdeck application, to transfer to the newer Desktop or Web application.

I love the layout and style of the newer application, but it is lacking some major features that many people use on a day to day basis.

The first feature being the support of other URL shorteners, such as TinyURL, is.gd, and YOURLS. I lost trust in Bit.ly and j.mp, both owned by bitly™, after they flagged a legitimate blog that I was a member of, as spam. While I know Twitter has the built in t.co url shortener, many people including myself, prefer the ability to control what URL shortener we use. One major use of it, is we are able to use it to bring attention to our business or blog, even if the long link isn't a part of our website.

Another feature, which you have been improving on, is the ability to change the colors of Tweetdeck. While users of the modern Tweetdeck apps currently have the ability to switch between a dark and light theme, the older "Adobe Air" app allowed us to fully change the look of Tweetdeck, to make a representation of ourselves. While I had a red and black theme, because my favorite colors are red and black, my best friend had a pink and purple theme. This is one feature I deeply miss.

Something the "Adobe Air" Tweetdeck had, that the current versions doesn't, is the ability to log into other microblogging websites such as Identi.ca or other Status.net websites. While I personally did/do not use this feature, I know of many who do on the "Adobe Air" version of Tweetdeck, via the custom endpoint feature(?).

The final feature I feel that the "Adobe Air" Tweetdeck app(s) had, that the modern app doesn't, is Linux support. This feature I am deeply passionate about. I, and thousands of Linux users, are left out of the wonderful features the current Tweetdeck has, and since Adobe dropped Adobe Air support for Linux, we are also left out of the features that the older app had.

While most people know that Linux users are able to use the web and Chrome versions of Tweetdeck, there is no support for a Desktop app, which a lot of people, including myself, like, because of the popup notifications, no matter what program we are viewing at the time, and the fact that it doesn't take up another tab of space in our browser.

I would like to thank you for your time, and hope that you take my opinion, and the opinions of all the supporters of this letter, into consideration.

Sincerely, @pgrytdal
http://twitter.com/pgrytdal

Original Post Link: http://tweetdeck.posterous.com/an-update-on-tweetdeck