GEOpdx

With google about to spring a new personal update system on the world, I'm wondering when we get to settle down and just worry about communicating.   With proprietary update formats proliferating on the web it's hard to know what you can safely invest in.  Nothing like the standards for e-mail have emerged. Then along comes a small wonder like TweetDeck to tame the wild west of update formats.  It currently supports viewing and sending updates from Twitter, Myspace, LinkedIn and FaceBook.  With it's most recent release It also integrates media and link services like Youtube, Flickr, Bit.ly, Yfrog, twitpic, and many more. Add the powerful column control features and you have something that in many ways is more powerful than the sum of the services it mashes together.

This is significant to me because as tools like TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop, and others add more services they become less dependent on any one service. Could they possibly transcend their early origins and become the rossetta stones of the social web?  A real and definite standard for updates would change the picture quite a bit but that doesn't appear to be coming any time soon. 

Seesmic might see this possibility because it has been developing more user friendly versions of its products starting with SeesMic Look.  This brings up the main weakness/strength for many third party tools - they are aimed at power users.  So what do you think?  Will these tools remain niche players, or is there more potential here? Please let me know your thoughts in my comments.

Related Links:

New Tweetdeck version puts Twitter on crack, brings in YouTube and Flickr http://bit.ly/d9nmSI @techcrunch

Dear Facebook, Please Check Out the New Tweetdeck http://bit.ly/cjSkpB @marshallk

Great Scott! TweetDeck engages the Twitter Flux Capacitor - TweetDeck's posterous http://bit.ly/cdJHDi @tweetdeck