Tweet Deck has won me over, and I'd like to share how.

As many of you know, twitter has taken over the buzz of the internet. Almost every social media or "future of web" conversation I hear ends up mentioning twitter in some way. Even corporations are starting to take note of twitter in tracking their market. While twitter is really still on the minority of the mass user, its growth in the last year has been awe inspiring.

I personally have just really taken note of twitter in the last 9 months, or maybe more. Staying with the crowd of other new twitter users, I could start the conversation by saying that I really didn't know what it was for. So I do what I always do when I want to know more about something. I googled it. First thing to take my attention was Twitter in Plane English.  Very interesting, but I'm still the first of my friends, family, pets, and plants, to join twitter. So, who do I follow? What do i share?  And who cares?

Well come to find out, noboddy really cares.  I twitter probably once a week at the most.  Posting about squirrells in the backyard, the weather, maybe even about the birth of my second child.  But something was lacking.  Followers.

I started following the big-wigs, @KevinRose, @LeoLaporte, @Scobleizer, and others.  Then I just sat back and watched.  Nothing came quickly.  They were doing the same thing I was, yet they had thousands of people watching.  Okay, so internet celebrities use this to share with their voyeuristic fans who want to get in on their glamorous internet life styles.

I continue to randomly post, and had trouble keeping up with the small group of people I was following.  I downloaded @twitterific on my iphone.  That helped a bit. I could skim pretty quickly through a feed of mostly other people having random conversations. But still a lot of things I really don't care much about.  A few random interests here and there, but overall nothing to write home about, or tweet home if you will.

Then it appeared.  It was sleek and flashy (no really its built on flex for Adobe Air) and simple to use. It was while watching diggnation (Yeah, I know, still think it's entertaining) and @jimmyfallon high fived @kevinrose right after saying "Twitterdeck?  Yeah!"  Now it could have been my desire to be like Kevin Rose, or that when two guys high five over a common bond, I want to join that special bond. Nevertheless, I immediately stopped what I was doing and google this "twitterdeck" that they spoke of.

Sure there was the  long feed with boring third-party conversations. But wait!  @replies, ooh the dm messages!  And then the kicker!  Popular twitter topics, search feeds, and groups!  It started to become clear. 

I'm a UI designer.  I love checking out other UI inspirations.  Simple search... done!  A cornicopia of resources, and even more, these resources were posted by other fine men and women, (though mostly men) that were also interested in UI design.  I started to follow those that shared my interest.  Tweeting links like they were about topics i cared about. Sharing links, finding links, retweeting links, and opening up a wonderful world of community among common believers in the world of UI design. 

I also found many other topics to follow and converse on, but it is clear now.  Twitter is a simple resource to spread knowledge, information, resources, news, and joy.  Does that mean, I don't occasionaly mention my tailess squirrel out in the backyard? No, it still happens, because just maybe there's a group of people out there interested in that kind of thing.

And I just have to thank @Tweetdeck for organizing that chaos for me.  For opening my eyes as if I've never seen color before, and the world has just been black and white. I'm excited to dig deeper now with twitter and see how to expand even more in to its marketing opportunities, philanthropy contexts, and entrepreneurial insights.

Thank you TweetDeck